Helping Haitians Help Themselves

Strategic Plan to Defend Life and Rebuild

FONDAMA (Fondasyon Men Lan Men Ayiti/ Hand in Hand Haiti Foundation), representing 11 organizations, including 4 national farmer networks, with a presence in 80% of the municipalities of Haiti, and approximately 400,000 members. (Note:  most of these organizations are also members of Via Campesina.)

Report by Stephen Bartlett, Agricultural Missions, Inc (AMI)   January 12, 2010    Papay, Haiti

“The clock of Haiti was turned back to Zero on January 12, 2010.”  --Director of the Mouvement Paysan Papay (MPP) Chavannes Jean-Baptiste.

On February 10 and 11, 2010 leaders of the national alliance FONDAMA (Hand in Hand Haiti gFoundation) met in Papay, Haiti to plan a national program capable of responding to the enormous challenges faced by the Haitian people in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, Leogane and other cities, towns and rural districts near the epicenter.  With the colossal loss of life, and the massive destruction of basic infrastructure in the capital city, an estimated 500,000 people have already fled the city to provinces and rural areas in every region of Haiti.  With the first rainfall falling on the heads of hundreds of thousands of homeless victims living outdoors in Port-au-Prince yesterday (Feb 10), there is a possibility of a second mass exodus to follow.

In the Central Plateau where the FONDAMA meeting took place, hosted by the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), there are an estimated 150,000 displaced persons.  In the provincial capital of Hinche there are an estimated 15,000 refugees already registered.  The MPP, in addition to receiving about 100 displaced persons in their training center, had on-site registrations of displaced persons over a number of days, leading to a tally of more than 8,000 displaced persons in the two rural districts nearest to Papay.  In the course of the registry interviews and in visits to host families in the area, it was learned that most of the 8,000 people are currently spread out among rural households, some of which now number up to 20 or even 27 people in tiny rustic shacks and modest adobe, concrete tin-roofed houses, overwhelming the host households. 

The burden and challenge this brings to rural communities is enormous.  The MPP, having decided they have a capacity to receive up to 1,000 displaced persons, is nevertheless reluctant to erect the first 100 tents delivered, since the World Food Program will only provide one meal per day for what is almost certain to be many months providing shelter, food and water.  The MPP long term plan is to settle 1,000 displaced persons with a rural vocation in three agricultural villages on land already in possession.

The national plan of FONDAMA comprises 4 stages—urgent, short-term, medium and long- terms.  Among the urgent needs FONDAMA member organizations are the registering of displaced persons in order to document the level of need and to locate the victims and their hosts.  FONDAMA agreed to advocate for the payment of $100 USD cash grants for up to 5,000 women who lost their homes, and $100 USD loans for up to 2,500 vulnerable rural women in households actively hosting displaced persons.  In addition, FONDAMA member organizations will advocate for adequate food aid for the displaced and for the intervention of psycho-social professionals with auxiliaries trained to accompany the victims and work with the psychologists in treating the large number of traumatized victims of the disaster.

The short and medium term priorities of the FONDAMA plan include the massive procurement and purchase of seeds (270 tons of grains, especially corn, 180 tons of beans or peas) for planting in the rainy season that begins in March and April, and for additional hand tools (machetes and hoes) for 30,000 farmers.  This is critical as rural host families are quickly depleting their seed saved for the next planting in order to feed the displaced victims of the earthquake. At the same time there will be a ramping up of the number of tree nurseries for a reforestation effort with a goal of planting 3,700,000 tree seedlings, 30% of which will be fruit trees.  Workshops will be established to manufacture 300 community grain storage silos, to accommodate cooperative seed storage for future planting seasons.  1,000 water cisterns will be built in 1,000 family farmers for production of vegetables for the nutritional needs of the rural communities.  50 wells will be drilled, 10 dams built, 10 irrigation systems installed and 50 springs will be caught and channeled per year for irrigation purposes and for pure drinking water.

In soil conservation the FONDAMA plan calls for 200,000 person-days of paid labor at $5 per day, and 100,000 person-days of labor on a voluntary basis, in order to implement the water management and reforestation projects listed above.  Agro-ecological training will be expanded including through the deployment of national and international training brigades, across the productive regions of the country. 

A cultural life and integration program will accompany these extensive efforts, in order to provide the kind of community life that will make displaced urban persons understand that the rural areas have a potentially vibrant quality of life.  Activities such as song story-telling  and poetry contests, ceramics workshops, popular theater productions, sports leagues for soccer, basketball and volleyball, and drumming convergences will provide the spice of life that will mobilize across generations and provide hope and recreation for the host rural communities and their new members.

In order to reinforce the capacity of FONDAMA member organizations to implement this strategic plan, resources will also be needed to purchase two 4 by 4 vehicles (one to replace the vehicle destroyed by the earthquake and another for coordination and outreach across the Haitian territory).  Additional personnel will likewise need to be employed and trained.  New technical trainers will have to be trained, as well as managers of the materiel to be distributed.  “Training of trainers” educational activities will need to be expanded.  New computers are needed to replace those lost in the earthquake, and for the additional personnel needs, and communications improved.  The ten-year long-term plan also calls for the building or remodeling of 10 farmer centers for each of Haiti’s departments that will serve as  organizational centers, offices and meeting points, including new community radio stations in order to connect the Peasant Voice radio transmissions and add transmission relays so that those broadcasts can be heard nationwide.

FONDAMA leaders will be meeting on February 17-18 to iron out details of this plan, as well as a strategy for prioritizing how it will be implemented, in conjunction with a FONDAMA general assembly that will be asked to ratify this plan overall.   One of the cross-cutting themes at every level is disaster preparedness, involving training, logistics, communications  and decentralization of functions. The size of the program poses a challenge for the member organizations of FONDAMA and their staff, and depends on wide and deep solidarity from abroad, particularly among organizations and people of good will and intelligent discernment to see in this project a ray of hope not only for the Haitian people, but for all of humanity as we confront the challenges of environmental degradation and increased natural and human-aggravated catastrophes across the world.  As Haiti is brought back from the brink, we will know that the earth itself can be brought back with them.