around for a while. They do good work. They've collected and spent
millions of dollars on behalf of Haiti and Haitians. One of their most
visible projects (at least to me, but admittedly I don't see
everything) is street cleanup. They hire teams of people to walk
around the streets of Port au Prince and clean up garbage.
Garbage, if you have never visited Haiti, is a large problem. If
you've been to Haiti you aleady know this. Like many developing
nations, there just isn't a culture of throwing garbage in the
garbage. When I tell my kids to "jete fatra nan lakou a" (throw out
the garbage in the yard), they will trim the trees. They will rake the
leaves. They will sweep the gravel. But they will leave bottles,
wrappers, broken toys, and old clothes on the ground, as if those
things aren't included in the term garbage. From our American point of
view this seems dirty, filthy, and just plain wrong. I'm not making a
judgement like that, but I do see the value (health, beauty, etc.) of
keep the streets clean.
And Yele Haiti is not the only organization on the "clean the streets
bandwagan. Oxfam is a large oranizationin Haiti. They do a lot of
stuff that I'm not familier with. But they have one particlar program
that I noticed the other day. They are giving out signs to put on the
sides of Tap Taps.
Public transportation, especially in Port, is handles by modified
pickup trucks called Tap Taps. These all have a particular routes.
There aren't a ton of different routes, but dozens of trucks will run
each route. So if you see a Tap Tap on the streets of Port au Prince
you will notice hand painting lettering on each door:
- C'four - C'ville
- P'ville - Delmas
- C'ville - Clarcine
If you lived in Port au Prince, Haiti you would know exactly where
these trucks went. Oxfam has a clever program where they give away
stickers for the side of Tap Taps. Each sticker has the name of the
route in large clear lettering, a nice, Haitian picture, and the
sentance "Lari a pa pou'w jete fatra" (The street is not for throwing
out garbage). Oxfam realizes that simply cleaning up garbage doesn't
solve the problem. There needs to be a cultural change. Both Oxfam and
Yele Haiti are wisely spending donor money to attemp to cleam up the
streets of Haiti (So please don't take the rest of this post as a
criticism).
A few months ago, a random person, or a random company, I don't know,
saw a business opportunity in Haiti. Soon, the rumors started to
circle the streets of Port au Prince. Not long after that spread into
the surrounding cities and mountains: Someone was willing to pay for
empty plastic bottles.
If you visit Port au Prince now you won't find a single plastic bottle
on the street. In one short month, the person or company, was able to
clean up the streets of Haiti. But they're also changing the culture.
I know Haitians who have put a bucket out front of their house and
expect all family and guests to put their used drink bottles into this
bucket-- recycling has come to Haiti. But this change wasn't made by
the government. And it wasn't made by a humanitarian or missionary
group. It was spearheaded by a clever (and selfish?) entrepreneur who
is (gasp!) making money off the hard work of the Haitian poor. A
friend of mine calls this "marginalizing the marginalized". Many
people would say its immoral. They see the wealth of the richest in
Haiti and cannot reconcile it with the depth of poverty around them.
Others want it to be illigal, legislating or taxing this
entrepreneurial class into oblivion. Some, especially within the
Christian community, think they should not be trusted or associated
with. Listen, I'm not saying that the business class in Haiti are the
savior of the world, but they aren't the devil either.
This random buisiness leader did more to affect positive change in
Haiti in one month than two well-respected non-profit groups were able
to do in half a decade. If that's marginalizing the marginalized then
I'm all for it.
P. S. - I know this post could use some good pictures.
--
Sent from my mobile device
Nick Mangine _______
twitter.com/ngmangine | Joy in Hope
i-jat.blogspot.com | joyinhope.org
fb.me/ng.mangine | fb.me/joyinhope
1 comments:
One of the Pastors that I recently took to Haiti, who used to be in the recycling business was asking questions about the possible revenue for communities this could create. Either way less plastic in Haiti is a good thing in my books as well!
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