Projects
We have partnered with people in several communities to work on local projects.
Beginning in 2010, donors enabled us and a group of Haitian farmers to create a solar-powered center for Internet access, computer use and learning, and potential business services such as laminating and printing. Our participation in the farmers' project ended a few years ago.
The location is a rural mountain community that has no electrical grid and no public Internet access.
The project helped transform the community's awareness and access to information and learning opportunities.
Our collaborator was the Kòdinasyon Peyizan Nan Ma (KPM), a 600-member farmers' organization founded in 1981.
KPM would operate the computer center inside its cinder-block building.
In February 2011 we installed the first two computers along with a printer and other IT hardware. The center then began providing business services and computer-learning opportunities for the community. In November 2011 we installed more computers and a high-volume printer.
The remaining "piece" of the center to be put into place was Internet connectivity. We agreed to initially subsidize the cost of installing and maintaining Internet connectivity. The KPM agreed to determine how to sustain it, by applying sound business practices. In 2013 we arranged for business and financial literacy training for the KPM leadeship.
Our effort to obtain full Web access failed. In Kay Mak as in much of Haiti, cell signals are robust enough only for phoning, texting, email, and relatively small files.
In Baradères, Haiti, UPLIFT Haiti helps students—primarily women—in a vocational training center to develop culinary, sewing, embroidery and other skills.
The Fr. John Maxwell Vocational School is administered by the Little Sisters of St. Therèse. They established the center to empower people to gain skills needed to find jobs or start their own small businesses in Haiti’s food service and textile industries. (The sisters also operate a medical clinic and elementary school in Baradères.)
In addition to onsite training, UPLIFT Haiti provides the Maxwell School with culinary and textile supplies.
Because simply having skills is not enough, UPLIFT Haiti in 2013 arranged for all current and former students of the school to have training in financial literacy and in how to start a small business.
Medical clinics and community health workshops
Our first medical support project was conducted in La Colline, near Aquin, in Haiti's South Department in spring 2010 in collaboration with the Catholic diocese of Les Cayes. Our team of volunteer physicians and nurses conducted 2 days of medical clinics and led a workshop to train high school students to be first responders for important basic health problems such as head lice, eczema, malaria and dengue fever. (More)
In a similar project in May 2011, our team of U.S. and Haitian medical volunteers examined and treated 209 Haitian patients in the remote village of Petit-Trou-de-Nippes, also in the South Department.
We also conducted training in public health awareness at an elementary school, and conducted an 8-hour workshop in first aid and emergency response to 18 young adults. Trainees also learned how to help their community prevent cholera, which is epidemic throughout Haiti. (More)
Training workshops at culinary school
From January 9-16, 2010, a team of volunteers conducted training at a culinary school in Béraud, a community near Les Cayes in the South Department. The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi operate the school, L’Ecole Cuisinière de Béraud. The school offers a 3-year vocational program for young women who, for one reason of another, cannot follow a traditional academic career track. The sisters asked UPLIFT Haiti to train the school’s 2010 graduating class—as well as its instructors—in procedures for safely preparing and serving food to large groups. (More)
Headquarters of Kòdinasyon Peyizan Nan Ma.
Two of the center's embroidery instructors, Sr. Welone (second from left) and Ms. Nadege (fourth from left), examine students' projects at the Maxwell Center.
In the village of Petit-Trou-de-Nippes, UPLIFT Haiti nurse Lydie Alexandre (L) looks on while young adults practice with each other on how to take a person's blood pressure.
© UPLIFT Haiti