Completed project
Community Development and Citizen Safety
September 2008 to December 2010
CAD$ 267 000
$ 160 000 MRI-PQDI
$ 107 000 CECI
14,000 people (population of Village de Dieu), 50% women
It takes a village to raise a child… and a child to raise a village
Village de Dieu is a slum in the southwest of the Haitian capital whose development has been impeded by several years of instability over the past decade. Having been a stronghold for Port-au-Prince’s armed militants preceding ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide’s exile in 2004, development activities were curtailed in the years that followed. Taking advantage of a relative stability that emerged in 2009, CECI undertook the Projet d’Appui au Développement Communautaire et à la Sécurité Citoyenne à Village de Dieu (PADCOSEC). In spite of obstacles encountered following the January 12 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak, the project was able to adapt itself to the more immediate and pressing needs of the population in 2010. The project’s objective remained constant: to empower the Village citizens – of all ages – to be able to take charge of their own situations.
Young people are the key to development, and PADCOSEC focuses its activities accordingly. Juvenile delinquence is also a significant issue in the Village, and the presence of groups of idle youth loitering on the streets in particular is perceived as a public threat. CECI has therefore created a youth recreation centre, equipped to provide various sociocultural and sports activities, as well as those that promote awareness and raise consciousness. A group of Village young people was also given the opportunity to participate in an exchange visit to (Petit Goâve), often cited as a model community in Haiti with respect to development. They were thereby able to serve as representatives and envoys for their community, and were then in a position to relate to their families and peers all that they had witnessed.
PADCOSEC is investing in youth in the belief that it will elicit a general growth in collective pride. CECI has also been able to adapt its activities to the various challenges that have arisen over the course of the project. In memory of those missing following the January 12 2010 earthquake, 250 Village young people, largely those orphaned by the disaster, participated in a day of remembrance for those missing which took place on January 6 2011.
A Senegalese proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child – but as PADCOSEC demonstrates, sometimes it is the children who are able to raise their village.