A Model Community for Economic Development
Halfway to Jacmel, just before the road begins its descent from the highest peak, the tap-tap pulls off at Tombgateau and discharges its passengers; several more wait to climb aboard for the 90 mile trip back to the capital. This is as close as you can get by car; Fondwa is yet a 45 minute hike down, and then back up, and down, again and again.
Nothing much marks your approach into Fondwa, though the dirt road is surprisingly sound for all it’s remoteness; a small roadside well might almost be overlooked but for it’s near constant use. After one more short climb, past a stand of mango trees and around a slight bend, the scene changes markedly. Perched amazingly on a hill top, in these mountains where there is barely room to put two small houses side-by-side, sits a three-story cinder block building, topped with a radio tower and a satellite dish; the Community Center of the A.P.F.
With an almost complete lack of government services outside of the capital, Port-au-Prince, rural peasants in Haiti must provide for themselves, or do without. The Haitian peasant has long done without, so the first task of the A.P.F. was to mobilizie the people, encouraging them to take control of their community, rather than waiting for help from outside. The first two full years were spent simply teaching the principles of self-governance, introducing the tools of a participative democracy, and instilling the concept that change could indeed be effected.
With the principles and basic tools of self-reliance in place, the foundation had been laid for significant improvement in the lives of the people of Fondwa.
The Community Center has been the core of the A.P.F.’s activities, housing the health and dental clinics and the pharmacy, a community radio station, offices for the cooperative and a community store. An adjoining grain storage silo and a henhouse complete the small complex. Additionally, the center has accommodations for up to 60 overnight guests allowing Fondwa to host some 300 international visitors annually, affording them the opportunity to observe first-hand some of the challenges facing a third-world community through their Educational Tourism program.
The A.P.F. school offers the only secondary school between Leogâne and Jacmel, with students walking for as much as two-hours to get there. The A.P.F. also supports an orphanage providing a home for some 30 children.
But the influence of the A.P.F. is not confined to the immediate environs of the community center and school. Five of a planned 15 km of road have been built allowing truck access to the community and greater mobility for the people. Ten wells for potable water have been constructed and maintained in the region, greatly reducing what was for many a two hour trek for water; some 500,000 tree seedlings have been planted, with another 2,500,000 planned, to combat the twin devastations of deforestation and erosion.
Through these, as well as many other, projects, the A.P.F. has made a major difference in the lives of its members and for all of Fondwa. But, all that the A.P.F. has accomplished through it’s initial years of hard work, has yielded nothing more than those in the first world take for granted as a basic function of government. As much as it has done, it has done no more than provide a foundation for Fondwa.
In the coming years, the A.P.F. will build on this foundation. Fondwa still has no reliable means of self-support beyond subsistence farming. To fill this void, the A.P.F. has begun it’s most ambitious project yet, that of ‘Model Community for Sustainable Development’.
Together with FONKOZE, Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor (providing the financing), and the Government of Cuba (providing technical support), Fondwa seeks to become a model not just for Haiti, but for the entire Third World. Plans call for the development of several income-producing industries: already in operation is a commercial center with a bakery providing fresh bread to local vendors, a restaurant, a Fonkoze bank branch, and a wholesale store to serve local micro-entrepreneurs. Pig and poultry raising & processing businesses and a chair making business are also in development.
The A.P.F. has come a long way since it’s inception. Can they successfully change the way the Haitian peasant has lived in Fondwa for the past 200 years, in just a few decades? If the A.P.F.’s first 15 years are any indication, the answer is a qualified yes; the qualification being the continued support of those of us in the first world, both financial and technical, as well as spiritual.
Your help, your interest and your prayers are all welcomed.
©2002, David Fonda
