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India helps Haiti slum dwellers turn trash to cash

By Patralekha Chatterjee, Indo Asian News Service, India

Haiti hits the headlines with its coups, rebellions, crushing poverty and food riots. But now there's a ray of hope in one of the toughest slums of its capital here thanks to a tri-country initiative that includes India.

Gislene La Salle (foreground) and others working at the waste management plant in the Carrefour-Feuilles district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

Photo: P. Chatterjee

Nowhere is gnawing hunger, the daily struggle through power cuts, street violence and constant political upheavals more apparent than in the shanties of this fragile Caribbean island state of almost nine million people.

However, there are stirrings of change. India is one among three countries helping poor communities in a sprawling slum on the edge of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, break through the cycle of poverty, violence and despair.

"I know we have a bad image. But the violence is going down in my neighbourhood," said Gislène La Salle, a widow and a mother of six from Carrefour-Feuilles, the site of an innovative community-based waste management project funded by India, Brazil and South Africa (the IBSA alliance) along with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

IBSA has already committed $1.17 million to the project. "India's objectives in promoting South-South cooperation is one of the key factors behind the project, currently implemented in partnership with UNDP," India's honorary consul in Haiti Eddy Handal told a visiting IANS correspondent.

When the project began in 2005, Carrefour-Feuilles was synonymous with guns and gangsters. Today residents like Gislène who have found work in the recycling project exude a hope rare in the impoverished nation.

Gislène was one among the tens of thousands of street vendors who make up the informal economy in the western hemisphere's poorest country.

"But when the security situation deteriorated sharply, I could not work in the streets. Luckily, six months ago, I found work in this project. Now, life is more stable. I have a regular income." she said.

"The money I earn allows me to feed my family better and send three of my six children to school," Gislène told IANS in a mixture of Creole and French.

Georginette is also a widow. Like Gislène, this mother of seven is thrilled to find a regular job. "Earlier, only three of my seven children went to school. Many children from the neighbourhood roamed the streets. But since November 2007 when I began working here, I can afford to send five..."

Proud in their cobalt blue uniform, the two are among the 385 men and women currently working for the IBSA-funded waste management plant.

"Twentyfive persons who work at the 'triage centre' sorting out the garbage so that it can be recycled or composted receive $6 per day for an eight-hour shift," said Eliana Nicolini, the UNDP project coordinator.

"The 360 others who work four hours every day, collecting trash from the streets, get half that amount. Half of the workers are women in a neighbourhood where most households are headed by a single parent.

"Impressed by the positive results so far, the Haitian government would like to replicate this model in other regions of the country," Nicolini added.

The idea of turning trash into cash came from watching garbage pile up along Haiti's ill-maintained roads.

The waste not only clogged the capital's drainage system and canals, it also posed a security hazard as armed gangs used the mounds of trash as barricades, local media reports suggest.

It was against this backdrop that the IBSA/UNDP project was conceptualised in 2005.

"Every morning, a group of workers go out and collect waste from house to house," said Patrick Massenat, a local youth heading a committee created to implement activities contributing to waste management and to ensure effective involvement of governmental institutions.

"The trash is brought to the project site where another group sorts out the garbage - separating paper from plastic, metals and all that. Then, part of the waste is made into fuel briquettes."

"The project aims to reduce violence in the community, clean up the area and to provide more possibilities to people so that they can buy something to eat. That is why the local population is so happy with the project.

"It is not easy to choose who to hire in a place where so many are desperately in need of work. Many people beg us for work but we don't have vacancies at the moment. If we can hire even 100 more persons, it would solve a lot of problems," Massenat added.

But three years and an UN award down the line, there are concerns about the continuation of the project.

The first phase is over. "We are waiting for the results of a feasibility study before taking a final decision on the second phase," Malay Mishra, joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi told IANS.

The results of the feasibility study are expected in July.

The second phase focuses on marketing the recycled products. Paper waste is already being recycled into fuel briquettes to be sold in local markets. Money from the sale of these briquettes will be reinvested into the project.

"IBSA is committed to the construction of a composting centre, for which it has already allocated resources. The procurement process is under way and completion of work is now planned for the end of the year," said Francisco Simplicio from UNDP's Special Unit for South-South Cooperation.

Workers at the site hope donors will continue to support the project that has changed the face of the Carrefour-Feuilles slum.

Can employment to 385 people really end violence in one of the most notorious slum areas of Port-au- Prince?

"Most people in this area never knew real work. Now, they have experienced it. They also have families. The area is cleaner; the women who lost their husbands in gang wars and police firing are happier. It's a beginning," said Massenat.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE (Indo-Asian News Service)

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