David Chavannes is a London based photographer and videographer, who in April 2012 visited Haiti to find out more about the cholera epidemic and get a better understanding of the country itself. While he was there he ended up interviewing and filming a few locally led organizations.

The following video is the result of David's one day visit with SOPUDEP.

His other films, including a short video on the Citi Soliel based organization SAKALA can be found @ www.handsomepam.com and his personal photo and video work can be found @ www.davidchavannes.com

Thank you David for your support!

Ryan Sawatzky

Madam Rea walking to meet women from the FASA Micro-Credit program

I visited Haiti six months after the earthquake. It was a trip that left me feeling a bit uncertain of SOPUDEP's future. Only two years earlier in 2008 our foundation, The Sawatzky Family Foundation, had become SOPUDEP's main financial contributor, which had allowed them to not only keep their doors open, but for the first time since 2004, think about expanding their program of providing accessible education. The vibe in that time was that of a Haitian organization of potential and progress, however very humble it may have looked compared to the monolith NGO's, who's logo's were splashed across vehicles, t-shirts and backpacks at every turn. That vibe tuned to one of dissolution immediately following the earthquake. Was all the progress made prior to be for nothing? People were tired and angry and the situation of repairing not only the physical structures, but also all the broken social and political structures that existed prior, now seemed intensified and almost a bottomless pit of which there was no escape.

By Réa Dol, July 21, 2012
Translation and editing assistance by Ryan Sawatzky, The Sawatzky Family Foundation

Any country wanting to engage in the process of development for a prosperous future must invest in education. In this crossroads of Haiti’s history, it still is not a priority for the Haitian state to take charge of education and to implement suitable means to ensure the training and the development of all Haitians. For true national development to happen, the democratic government's hand cannot be withdrawn.

The Haitian constitution of 1874 was the first to recognize the importance of state funded education, at least in its primary phase, by declaring obligatory primary school education. Following constitutional amendments stipulated that primary school education was not only obligatory, but free. In spite of these written words, structures have hardly improved, and the Haitian state continues to neglect its duties in this field, preferring to leave the responsibility of education on the largely unregulated private institutions and foreign NGO's.

At the end of the 19th century, the already cash poor Haitian government was to naively pass the responsibility of providing education for its people onto the many catholic monks who found themselves on Haiti's shores ready to convert the population. These monks were the ones who first founded schools that favored the established middle-class, neglecting the poor masses openly. Favoring this small group of people able to pay for their education was a way to create assets for the church and lessened the challenge of having to engage with a poor rural majority that would use up monetary resources.

SOPUDEP director Rea Dol was presented a unique opportunity just a few months ago, when a generous amount of funds were directed her way from Rotary Barrie, in Ontario Canada. While SOPUDEP has implemented programs in free and accessible education for both adults and children and economic empowerment through micro-credit,  Rea and her peers saw a need which they had not yet met: that of trade skills training. They decided the street children program would be the starting point, and those most in need were the attending youth in their late teens and early twenties. 

As some may know, the street kids education program that Rea Dol started in 2009, has transformed a number of rough and tumble kids into young people who now take pride in their lives.  What started as six kids, now has grown to over 36, ranging in age from five to their early twenties. Along with learning their ABC's, these trade skills are now providing alternative ways to find employment.

Another need was identified within this trade skills program, one which was not only to secure a better future for themselves, but that of the environment in which they lived. Haiti is notoriously known for a county that is on the edge when it comes to sustaining their natural resources. Three main reasons are due to the mass deforestation that has occurred over the years to make charcoal for the use of heat, cooking and light, virtually no infrastructure for waste disposal  and the erosion of their reefs, which has occurred due to washouts from deforestation and overfishing.