By Laura Wise*
It was a hot day, the air sticky and humid as it typically is in Caribbean countries. Trekking through a large farm with camera gear in tow, being diligent to not step on the farmers’ budding crops; it was 8:00 a.m. and the day was just beginning. The schedule was jam-packed and well planned out. Louis-Marie Bijou, UMCOR Haiti’s community engagement manager, planned this comprehensive project tour for our small U.S.-based communications team. The day was to be spent visiting beneficiaries of the PISANS project (Provision of Integrated Services around New Settlement) in the small town of Cabaret, Haiti; the project is a collaborative effort to rebuild infrastructure and community after the devastating earthquake of 2010.
A testament to the power in partnership, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) formalized a partnership beginning in 2013. Through shared developmental goals, together the organizations have been able to implement an innovative approach to development in this community. The PISANS project, pisans meaning power in Creole, is holistic and layered programing focusing on critical basic needs. Currently in its second year of implementation, the program is changing lives and improving situations daily.
Developing an Ecosystem
In an attempt to relocate a group of earthquake-displaced families, UMCOR partner USAID constructed a 156 unit housing settlement in the Haut Damier, Cabaret, area of the West Department, approximately 15 miles outside of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. While this building project proved to be a concrete step forward in helping many Haitians rebuild their lives, it also created a potentially problematic situation. Attempting to merge a new community with an existing community in an already underserved location could present challenges. UMCOR and USAID agreed that this newly “integrated” community needed adequate resources to serve all its inhabitants.
UMCOR has been the implementing partner of the community engagement initiatives for this new settlement for the past two years. Creating a four-point program to ensure that the merging of communities is as seamless as possible, UMCOR is focused on four programmatic areas within the Cabaret community: 1) water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) 2) education 3) livelihoods, and 4) community engagement relations.
“It’s kind of like an ecosystem,” describes Thodleen Dessources, UMCOR program manager for Haiti. “We have tried to take a systematic approach, looking at all needs of the community and addressing them in a holistic manner. The identified needs and proposed solutions often feed into one another and for better or worse impact one another. These needs, thus cannot be addressed in silos. Let’s take a simple example, you cannot build latrines for households without also teaching families the importance of properly washing their hands after use, thus impacting their quality of life and decreasing the likelihood of gastrointestinal diseases such as cholera. With the PISANS project, we’ve tried hard to create this ecosystem building on the natural correlation between WASH and health.” UMCOR has worked tirelessly to ensure that the project has taken a holistic and integrated approach to the community’s development.
A Sense of Hope
The project, not yet finished, has an estimated goal of completion in June 2014. But, preliminary evidence shows that the project has been successful. Bijou explains the community’s victories. “We have seen many successes in each of our four focus areas. With the WASH program, people have adopted better behaviors regarding how to protect themselves from disease. They now know how to treat [purify] their water. With the education program, teachers have been better trained to provide quality education for the children in the community. In the area of livelihoods, many families are now able to run a business with the financial support and training provided to them from UMCOR. In community engagement, there is now a better harmony between the old and new residents as both communities, now one, are better able to articulate its needs and realize their goals.”
The most significant sign of the project’s success is the potential to expand and replicate this integrated model in another community in a nearby area.
Now, five years later, the physical wounds have begun to heal. The Cabaret community is now better able to support its own basic needs. This is a community in recovery, and in the five years since the earthquake, a new “ecosystem” has been created to address the many needs.
There is a sense of hope among the people explains Bijou. “The families are happy to have social lives again. Living in decent homes in a respectable environment has meant a lot. Most importantly these families have regained the dignity they lost when they were forced to live under tents. The collective community both host and new, are now more independent. They appreciate our efforts, yet don’t want to continuously be helped by humanitarian organizations. They want to hold on to their independence. Through the PISANS project, the community members in Cabaret are finding their power.
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