More than just a house

In Ganthier and Boen, Haiti, CWS leads an ACT Alliance program to improve living conditions for families by increasing access to dignified, safe housing and improved access to clean water and sanitation facilities. This program started in 2011 to help families who were living in camps following the devastating earthquake in 2010.

We have built 222 houses so far, but the impact goes beyond just the new homeowners. Each house is built by a local contractor and a crew of five to six workers.

Jean Samuel Ciné is a mason who has been employed to build some of the houses. He is 38, married and the father of a son and a daughter. He is from Latranblay, Haiti, and he has been part of construction teams for the full five years that the program has been in effect. He says that things have gone smoothly overall; the only rough spot was when heavy rains delayed work by two days.

Initially, the program focused on repairing houses. After that, construction began on new houses for families whose homes could not be repaired. In Jean Samuel’s words, “Every time we start a
new phase in the construction an engineer does a workshop with us to go over the construction
norms. There are a lot of changes that have been made after the earthquake that happened on
January 12, 2010. For example, we didn’t use rocks in the foundation of the house before, but
now we do.”

For each new house, the first step is a workshop for the masons and laborers that is run by the engineer. Then the team marks the land for digging the foundation. The new homeowners are responsible for digging of the foundation itself, and then they continue to participate throughout the duration of the construction process, under the lead of the technical team. CWS partner SSID provides materials.

Although he is not the owner of one of the new homes, the program has still had a positive impact on Jean Samuel’s life. He says, “The work in the project helps me a lot. First of all economically; it allows me to take care of my family, pay school for my children, and I purchased a plot of land and have built a shelter on it, so I no longer rent a house. Professionally, it has helped me advance in my knowledge. I have learned some new techniques; before I didn’t know how to cover a house, but I learned it in the project.” The program and his employment made it possible for him to move back to Haiti following the earthquake; he had previously been living in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

In Jean Samuel’s words, “I think that this project should continue so that more people can get a house, even in other areas of the country too.”

Peliote Fanord, another mason, adds, “The project helps me a lot. With my salary I take care of my family and now I am building a four room house in Bosquet. It is a very good project that helps the population and that helps us as well as masons. The project helps me to improve my technical knowledge too. For example, before I didn’t put rebar in the windows, but now I do, thanks to the project.”