Haiti

UCDVO began working in Gros Morne, Haiti in 2005. Our main partners are the Sisters of Jesus and Mary and they have worked there for over 10 years. The town and the townland surrounding it have a population of 120,000. See where we work:  

View UCDVO in Gros Morne in a larger map

 

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Haiti Projects

Following the massive earthquake which hit Haiti on the 12th January 2010, volunteers were more fervent than ever to get out and raise awareness and funds for Haiti. This year was the sixth year for UCDVO volunteers to work in the community of Gros Morne and the continued support has ensured a warm-spirited relationship between the locals and our volunteers. This year, students constructed three additional classrooms on to a primary school, carried out sports camps for over 700 children, and constructed dry-stone walls up the hillsides to guard against the potentially devastating effects of flooding. UCDVO provided employment for a large number of local people mainly as camp counsellors, labourers and agriculture and environmental technicians. This also provided a stronger sense of solidarity and camaraderie between the Irish volunteers and the Haitian community.

 

• Summer Camps: Gros Morne - Camp Glady, Camp Bigue and Camp Dekostyé were run over the month of July. The camps provide education, food, sports, and crafts activities for over 700 extremely disadvantaged children, as well as providing employment for thirty local people who worked with the volunteers in running the camps. UCDVO have been supporting these camps in Gros Morne since 2005 and the number of children taking part has steadily increased each year; the local schools have also seen a considerable increase in enrolments since the camps began. Volunteers and local camp counsellors help build the children’s self-esteem, encourage creativity and explore their talents, while also showing parents the benefits of a having their children in a learning environment.

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• Reforestation and flood prevention: Since 2005, UCDVO have been working with local communities on reforestation & building dry walls in the ravines to help flood prevention, soil erosion and deforestation which are endemic in Haiti. We also provide funding to tree nurseries to grow saplings from the seeds of Mango and Jatropha trees to ensure an on-going supply of young trees to aid reforestation. This work is vital for the protection of the local communities and the efforts being made to overcome the harsh effects of poverty and natural disasters.

 

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• Construction: In 2006 & 2007 UCDVO worked on construction projects in Bon Samaritan. In 2009, the volunteers worked in collaboration with local builders and tradesmen to complete the structure, paint and furnish three rooms to house 12 elderly people who have been abandoned as a result of extreme poverty. Sanitation facilities, including a toilet and shower, were also installed and electricity connected – this will greatly improve the standard of health and quality of life of the residents. In 2008, volunteers built nine houses in Gros Morne to provide much needed shelter for local people who had lost homes due to flooding. In 2011, volunteers successfully completed 54 latrines to improve sanitation in the area.

 

 

 

                              

 

Volunteer Testimonial: Donagh Humphreys, Arts Graduate - Haiti 2009 Volunteer

Haiti – you have to live it to believe it. No words of mine will even begin to explain how these people live or what this country is about or indeed what it must endure. I wish only to shed a little light through my experience on how we tried to help.

Haiti is a beautiful country, with rich culture. But is also a battered country, with a history of violence and oppression. Not to mention the natural disasters that befalls it almost annually in the Caribbean hurricane corridor.

This was UCDVO’s fifth mission in Haiti. Twenty six of us, including three leaders and our co-ordinator set out on our four week mission arriving in Port au Prince on the 28th of June.

Since the 2004 Haitian Revolution the country has been administered by the UN and their presence was somehow more unsettling than the throngs of people who greeted us outside the airport in the 110degree heat.

Our journey to our destination in the Northern interior of the country was arduous at best, but morale was high and most of us spent our time getting better acquainted with those we would be spending the weeks ahead with.

We arrived after dark that evening and met with our liaisons Sr. Pat and Sr. Jackie, the sisters of Jesus and Mary, who have been working alongside our charity since our first mission and in Haiti itself since 1997.

The next morning we set out en masse to visit the schools where we would be working. The stories had all been true; mode of transport was hanging on to the back of a pick up truck, children did point and stare and scream “blanc blanc”. The locals watched us carefully; the sight of a white person is both exciting and unsettling for them, their history hinting that our presence may not be entirely altruistic.

Our first port of call was Jean XXIII, a camp that we would be running for the fifth year in succession right in the heart of Gros Morne. We were greeted by hoards of screaming children, who showed little apprehension – they knew what we were about.

Next stop was Bigue, a rural village outside the town. This would be the site of the second kid’s camp, again we are well established in this area and our time there is an annual event celebrated by all in the community, not least the children hysterical with excitement.

Our final stop for the day would be the new camp in Dekostyé, where I myself would work for the next month. This was a new camp and there was an air of reservation on the part of the kids when we arrived. (I only mention this because three days later I had lost all control of my class!)

Dekostyé would also be the sight of one of our reforestation projects high in the hills above the village. We toured the nursery set up with UCDVO funding and climbed to the area where the planting would take place. Fr. Nestly told us that he wanted to put ‘green hats’ on all of the hills in the surrounding area.

The following day the organised chaos began with twelve volunteers in Jean XXIII, six in Bigue and six in Dekostyé. English classes, Maths lessons as well as Geography were all attempted and pursued by all of us but the real experience for the kids is the fun and games.

The real thing that we bring to these children is care and attention. Most of the kids that attend our camps are used to full working days, helping out on their family’s subsistence farm, or putting in a days work at the market, or simply running a household, looking after younger siblings and some who are orphans, fending entirely for themselves. Those who are lucky enough to attend school put in their day’s work when the get home so they have little time to reflect and therefore absorb what they have learned.

 ‘Play’ is a word not regularly heard in Haiti. Naturally there is little or no understanding on the part of teachers or parents as to the benefit of play for the kids, so it’s very much central to our mission; football, arts and crafts, music time and anything that involves running or catching or throwing, was as it turned out, the time best spent. It buoyed up the children and it gave us the bargaining chip which we needed to get them to learn some English!

Feeding the children is also a big part of the camps. Two meals a day were provided by the Volunteers. High energy meals secured under the ‘World Food Programme’ were provided, the results of which were clearly visible by the end of the month. This was one of the most personally satisfying parts of the project, when I thought back to the demeanour of the children when we first arrived compared with the giddy crowd we left behind, it highlighted the dramatic effects nourishment and attention can have.

The harsh reality is that our efforts may provide the energy and will for these children to get through the hurricane season. These notions are so foreign to us that one could dismiss this as a sensational notion, but I assure you Haiti is an extremely poor country where life itself is a luxury.

On a lighter note, our camps finished with two days of fun and celebration, with a concert attended by parents on the last Thursday and a sports day and final presentation on the Friday. This was a special treat for the children all of whom were awarded with a medal for the completion of their camp and there were a few sweets and other treats thrown in as well. All of the volunteers were very emotional saying their goodbyes!

The other aspect of our work was the physical side. As I have previously mentioned there was the reforestation project in Dekostyé which was accompanied by a ravine building project. Annual flooding was threatening to wash away part of the Church and school area, as well as the village water pump (vital infrastructure for a village as poor as Dekostyé) but with the efforts and funding of UCDVO this has been prevented.

Similarly there was a ravine building project in Bigue, Gran Plas and Gros Morne, run by the volunteers from both the Jean XXIII and Bigue camps, working alongside their Haitian technicians and many locals only too willing to lend a hand.

But the big project was the extension and completion of the ‘Kai Pov’ (literally translated as the house of poverty) which was started by the Volunteers three years ago. Simply put, it houses those who cannot fend for themselves. The reality is that poorer families in Haiti can barely sustain themselves and those who are elderly or infirm are a burden too heavy to deal with and these people are sent to the ‘Kai Pov’. It was genuinely shocking for many of us to see people younger than our parents who looked older than our grandparents.

But there was no extra incentive needed and we worked extremely hard alongside a great team of Haitian technicians and builders. Camaraderie was the order of the day in the ‘Kai Pov’ and I recall with a smile the jokes and songs shared with my new Haitian friends, despite the sweltering heat, the toil of work, the sporadic and torrential burst of rain and most burdensome, the language barrier.

The project was a great success with six new rooms and a common area with a brand new roof extended on to the original site. This was a most satisfying project as we could see the progression day by day.

The mission as a whole can definitely be classed as a success. Each of us can be thankful for the great opportunity and privilege it was to be a UCD Volunteer. It is not clichéd to say that we received more than we gave. This may turn out to be the best and most important thing any of us did during our whole time in UCD.

The impact we left may not make headlines, but trying to aid the development of Haiti is a bit like trying to negotiate its landscape. It will be a long and arduous journey. So many of the factors which hold it back are external, and policies made in offices far away in the US or Europe are the deciding factors for the future of Haiti. But people on the ground make the real difference to the people of Haiti. And in that cause UCDVO can do no better. May it continue its good work for years to come.