Rebuilding homes and supporting strong women in Haiti

Since the earthquake of January 12, 2010, CWS, local partner SSID and other ACT Alliance members have been working in communities of Ganthier and Boen, West Haiti, starting with material aid and transforming into an integrated community development program with construction of houses, agricultural support (seeds, animals, technical accompaniment, access to water), microcredit and capacity training.

Many of the households are female headed. Viergenie Louiné is a single mother of eight children. At the time of the earthquake she lived in Port-au-Prince, but when her rental house got destroyed, Louiné came to Ganthier, seeking a place to live in the camp despite not knowing anyone in the area. About the support from SSID, CWS and other ACT Alliance members, Viergenie Louiné says: “They gave us food, water, clothes, bedding, and they helped us to leave the camp. With the money they gave us to leave the camp, I started a business. I sell coconuts and chayote. With the profits I made, I purchased a small plot of land.”

Thanks to Louiné’s good management of her resources and her capacity to increase her business, she qualified as a beneficiary of a house, once she had purchased a plot of land. Beneficiaries actively participate in the construction process of the house, both with a financial and in-kind contribution, digging the foundation, carrying materials, fetching water, preparing meals for the labourers, etc. Viergenie Louiné is now the proud owner of a two-bedroom house. “I couldn’t have built this house,” she says. “I look at it and think it can’t be mine. We live well now.”

Marie Snouth Juste is another exceptional and strong woman. She is one of the main farmers in Boen, often to be found on her land, growing and tending to her crops. A courageous woman who has planted many pounds of beans, sorghum, and corn. Marie Snouth Juste has seven children: three girls and four boys. Her hard agricultural work and harvests of her crops allowed her to raise, feed and educate her children after she lost her first husband.