Reflecting on cooperatives and economic deveolopment

Last week, the cooperatives in Duchity, Haiti had their second annual meeting. Last year, their group had 300 members and this year they're nearing 1000! Their elected president is a woman, and they have various other women in high ranking positions. In one much-anticipated election, a woman beat out five men to lead one of the committees. This marks huge progress Ina country with such distinct traditional gender roles. Cooperatives often provide women with economic solvency and help them to gain equal status in their communities.

I continue to be amazed at just how effective the cooperative model can be. So many foreigners come to Haiti to build schools and churches, often with great intentions, but the amount of money spent on these projects is incredible! If only people could think of investing in development and empowering Haitians to lift themselves out of poverty, they might start to see some amazing returns for their money. With hard work and cooperation, cooperative members are able to make money and support themselves.

Duchity announced at their meeting that they have purchased their own land. They already have plans to construct a training center, which will be used as a meeting space, a training center, and a community center. And because their cooperative is so productive and profitable, they aren't even asking for any loan money!

Yesterday, I met an international coordinator for the Canadian Pentocostal church. He told me about a community that one of his churches partners with just outside of Port-au-Prince. The priests at that church welcomed the partnership and keep asking money for bigger and bigger projects. For him, it all came to a head with a school that they wanted to build, which he refers to as the Taj Ma-Haiti. He tried explaining to their Haitian partners that any church in Canada would love to have a building like that, but they make do with much less, but Haitian priests were insistent that the school represented what the community needed. The Canadian organization had to take a step back. They hired a Haitian organization, productive cooperatives Haiti (pcH), to do a full community assessment. The Canadian Pentocostal church sees their role in partnering with a church as a commitment to partnering with the whole community and lifting all of God's children to a better standard of living. Now, with the assessment complete, they can approach their church partners with a better understanding of the community, its strengths, and its needs, and everyone can coordinate their efforts in the most efficient development projects. They anticipate doing agricultural training, using appropriate technology to help the fisherman increase productivity, helping the community to improve their access to clean water, and helping them to build successful cooperatives. Over time, each of these investments will make the community more self-sustaining, and then they can decide if their own money would be well spent on a Taj Ma-Haiti, or perhaps a more traditional school building.

Miguel, Parish Twinning and Rising Above Poverty

Miguel is pretty remarkable.  He’s smart student who speaks Creole and French and understands quite a bit of English.  But even more remarkable, he’s not married, he has no children, and he’s twenty.  Wow.  He’s charming and attractive, and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend…  that doesn’t happen in Haiti.

So, what made this possible?  What gave him the confidence to pursue his education, and what let his family allow him to do that?  After all, he should be working in a field somewhere, building a family, and being a productive person.

He lives in a parish with a twin/partner in the states.  He goes to a church-based school.  We can credit his language skills to his education, which likely has roots in that twinning relationship.  But there are twin parishes all over the place here through a billion different NGOs, and most twenty year-olds are still done with school.  I’ve learned that school is a potential starting point, but it doesn’t hold the answers.  That’s not where I put my money, my investment dollars, or even my time.

Miguel’s overall success in life really is due to his family’s stability.  Fond Baptiste has a productive cooperative.  His family is economically stable.  They can let him finish school, they value his education because they see how it will help them all, and they encourage him to wait to have a family because they see hope for his future. 

Kids all over this country go to church-based schools, but if their families are not stable and their communities can’t see a future for in their education… Schools aren’t the answer.  Churches aren’t the answer.  Economic development and community building are.

          I’ll go one step further, and then I’ll get off my soap box.  There is a ridiculous amount of money coming into Haiti every day.  People are bringing everything from beanie babies to life-saving medications.  Many organizations have been doing this for years and years providing all variations of handouts.  As my friend, Colleen, said tonight, there’s nothing more demeaning that repeatedly asking someone, “What do you need?”  To truly partner with someone you need to live with them, work with them, and ask them how they do things.  Haitians have been surviving, against all odds, for much longer than they technically should have.  We need to recognize their strengths and empower them to stand up with outstretched empty hands.  Only then will we start to learn.  And I’m just starting myself…