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To amplify the voices of the vulnerable, the marginalized and the excluded. |
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Merfy Jirolien, Journalist, Bon Nouvel, Haiti
Terrier Rouge is a community in the North-East department of Haiti situated at 36 kilometers from Cap-Haitien, the main city of the North. In 1984 the Episcopalian Church of Haiti established an agricultural technical school to train young men and women in the field of agriculture and the cultivation of vegetables in particular.
In early 2001, this centre had 37 students in the first year, with three women among them. The second year is being attended by 36 students (one woman in this group). The diploma course lasts two years, with one- week breaks following each trimester.
Sisal is the main crop that the community of Terrier-Rouge used to grow. Two factories, Fayeton and Derak, used to buy the peasant’s production of sisal.
In 1986, when the Dauphin factory closed its operations, the inhabitants turned to raising cattle, because many people believed that the land could not grow anything else than sisal. Read more ...
The business of drug has boosted the economy of certain coastal towns and localities oh Haiti.
Young and old, fishermen and farmers have neglected their traditional occupations to expect the fall/drop of this new manna from heavens or the ocean.
Baptiste is one these groups of people. Recently he left Marigot his home place in the south east and walked for 4 kilometers to reach Guillomonde in search of the precious powder. Read more ...
Carril Desrosiers, Independent Journalist, Haiti
According to a report, which was published by the Institute for Psycho-Social Family Issues (IPSOFA) in collaboration with UNICEF under the title: “Juvenile domestic servitude in Haiti,” nearly 300,000 children are placed as domestic servants (restavèk in Creole).
According to the testimonies of several of them, the girls who live in the streets are sometimes former restavèk, deliberately having adopted the streets as their refuge because they can no longer suffer the ill-treatment of the man or lady of the house.
In Croix-Desprez located in the south-east of Port-au-prince, a restavèk girl of 14 identifies herself and recounts her poignant testimony. After spending 7 years in domestic servitude at the house of a lady who she qualifies as nasty, she is fed up. With a trembling and pathetic voice, she draws up a serious evaluation of the consequences of the domestic servitude on her personal development. Read more ...