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.

Animation in Haiti-- a development model

I’ve been reading this paper, Animation in Haiti: MCC Haiti’s Experience with Rural Community Development by Barry C. Bartel, published in February 1989.  Barry lived in Haiti for a few years during the 1980’s as an MCC volunteer (it’s something like JVC, but through the Mennonites), and his writing is eloquent, as I wish mine were.  I’ve transcribed the first section of his paper, as I think it’s brilliant…  It might be a little too philosophical for some of you, but I think it resonates so well with everything I’m trying to do.

(Hopefully he won’t mind… I don’t have any permission to replicate his work, but I hope he’ll see this as a sincere form of flattery.  J )

Animation as a Philosophy of Development

Before describing animation in its specific applications to Haiti, it is important to establish it as an overall approach to or philosophy of development.  The specific applications will then be seen to embody this philosophy.

The term animation is not likely a familiar term in many development circles outside of Haiti.  Other terms, such as consciousness-raising education, participatory development and empowering, may be more familiar in other countries.  The essence of the approach is that it sees development as a long-term process that seems to empower others through encouraging and facilitating their participation and ownership in the development process.  Results are important but are secondary to the process.  Roland Bunch, author of Two Ears of Corn, has identified a key to development not as solving or even helping people solve their problems, but as helping them learn not to solve their problems.  Otherwise, what happens if we help them solve their problem, then we leave, and their problems change?  They are stuck, no better off than before we came.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and by some people’s estimates has the highest concentration of foreign missionaries in the world.  Foreigners see needs in Haiti and feel good doing things to solve them.  Haitians thus learn that the only way for their situation to improve is if foreigners come and do something for them.  I call it the Helpless Haitian/ Almighty American syndrome.  As a result one of the biggest tasks for development in Haiti is to help Haitians learn that they can control their situation and solve their problems.  Without a doubt they need technical advice, moral support, and financial assistance, but they need to own the solution.  This takes longer and results may not be as evident, but some of the most significant results (trust, cooperation, a sense of individual and collective self-worth) may be invisiblt or may only be a seed then we see them.

In its orientation sessions for new workers, MCC stresses that new workers will likely enter assignments with high expectation of what they will accomplish.  They desperately want to help those less fortunate than themselves.  But the brief contributions of development workers are often more frustrating than productive, as is seen as a long-term enabling process, the approach is significantly different than when participants try to produce visible results quickly.

This approach takes more time, but hopefully results are more permanent.  Rather than solving someone’s problem, an approach based on animation helps people identify their needs, helps them identify and analyze possible solutions, helps them develop and implement a plan, and only then helps them find necessary financial resources to supplement their own resources and work.  With their own planning, work, and sacrifice, they will own the solution, begin to feel like they can solve their own problems, and work to ensure that the solution lasts.  Without this emphasis on process, we risk showing people that they can’t solve their own problems now or when we leave.  Animation as used in Haiti does an amazing job of bringing primarily illiterate farmers, who have learned by living that life is difficult, that leaders dictate, and that foreigners are needed in order for anything good to happen, to an understanding and implementation of forms of cooperation, solidarity, collective self-worth, and self-determination.  The process is the key.

This is the shortest section of this paper, but I believe is is the most critical.  I articulate it here because I believe it forms the foundation on which specific applications of animation in Haiti are based, not because I expect it will be new or revealing to people reading this paper.  I suspect the above description of philosophy would have been more universal application in development than the specific approaches used in Haiti, though they, too, may have application elsewhere.

Reflections after a weekend in Jacmel

Hey all!
     I just got back from a great weekend in Jacmel with Dom and his friends, Nesly and Natalie.  We drove past some incredible earthquake devastation on the way out, and Jacmel was a breath of fresh air on the other side of the mountains.  They have their share of quake damage too, but it's hard to shake the beach.  We drank Prestige, swam, and ate freshly caught fish under the palm trees.

Here's the dining area.

Nesly and Natalie

Dom learned to back float.

Sun setting... love the clouds

     Today we hung out at Leslie's house while Dom's car got washed and detailed, and then we drove back through new devastation.  The heavy rains last night flooded many of the main roads to Port-au-Prince and washed piles of trash all over the place.  We actually had to turn around at one "puddle" and find an alternate route.

Here's where we turned around

Going to Jacmel was great fun and an opportunity to reflect. 

Having been in Haiti for approximately three months of my life, I have nothing tangible to show for it.  It’s an interesting feeling.  The medical mission group who is staying at Wall’s saw 976 patients the other day (with a total of 8 doctors, in one day… that’s scary).   Another group built an orphanage.  Yup, they got their hands dirty.  Me, I’ve just learned a lot.

I first came to Haiti on immersion experiences, to see poverty and learn about the world.  Those experiences served as social justice retreats and powerful motivators.  In medical school, I came for a more spiritual retreat, to hang out on Jane Wynne’s organic farm and make recycled paper products.   I came last fall to learn Creole and to meet with nonprofits about long-term partnering, and here I am again.

Well, this trip, I’ve taken steps toward long term partnering.  Studying the rural medical system, learning more Creole, and having some fun are perks, but I think the relationships that I’m building are most significant.  Already committed to working here, I need to make sure that whatever I do is effective.  I’m making a big investment of my time and resources, and I’m expecting to see real returns someday.

I’ve fallen in love with participatory development, and I’m really looking forward to partnering with PCH.  They’re effective, and they’ve proven it again and again.  If I can assist them in adding a health care arm that is similarly empowering, while simultaneously saving lives, then all of my time will be well spent.

Thanks to all of you for your patience and support!  I'm so grateful.
love, becky