Located in southern Haiti, the small rural village of Lougou has a growing population of more than 1,500 residents who live in an area of less than 1.2 square miles.
Lougou desperately needs help in the areas of economics, education and health.
Economics:
Due to erosion, farmers are unable to produce enough crops. Most families cannot pay for medical care or their childrens’ education.
COFHED has assisted Lougou women in forming a microcredit group and trained the women in the concepts of microenterprise. COFHED has also helped to create partnerships with other local organizations, such as SEED ministries. SEED has provided some training on agronomy and animal husbandry in Lougou.
Community Goals for Economics
Road accessibility: was voted first priority by community members in 2004.
Construction of about 3.5 mile gravel road is top concern for community residents and would facilitate travel through rugged mountainous path to Marceline. Benefits would include:
1) Better and faster access to the nearest health care facility in Camp-Perrin. Currently, a make-shift wooden stretcher is used, requiring 10 or more people tp transport the very sick from Lougou to the 11-bed hospital in Camp-Perrin.
2) Strenghthening the local economy by improving transportation of goods to markets in Camp-Perrin and surrounding localities.
3) Reducing the cost of bringing construction materials, supplies and goods to Lougou
How you can help:
- If you are an engineer, surveyor, or have any experience in road construction you can add to existing community skills and resources to help Lougou achieve its first community priority.
- Cost analysis is also needed from an expert.
Health:
Prior to COFHED’s involvement, there were no health services in Lougou. Residents needed to travel to Camp Perrin to see a doctor—a three-hour trip by foot. However, 2 years ago Lougou saw one of its own residents graduate from nursing school and return to her village to serve as a community health nurse and school nurse.
What makes a healthy community ? For Lougou residents, the determinants of good health and development rest upon:
- adequate safe water and sanitation facilities
- microcredit schemes to develop small businesses
- better and safe housing
- basic health services
- access to good education
- a safe and vibrant environment
- adequate food production
- a community center
- road accessibility
Community Goals for Health
- To be a healthy sustainable community
- To build a small clinic to provide basic health care to the community
- To decrease infant and child mortality
- To train community health workers to promote healthy lifestyles and to provide basic life saving care
How you can help:
- You can help support the salary of the community health nurse for now
- You can donate toward building a small clinic
- You can support a community health worker
Community Health Accomplishments:
- A Lougou resident studied nursing and came back to the village to work as a community health nurse and a school nurse.
- A yearly medical team from Minnesota provides health care services in the short term
- A village health committee promotes health messages to the community and also brings residents to local hospitals or to Les Cayes for special health needs.
- A community health account has been established to provide emergency funding for village residents’ health care needs.
Education:
Adult illiteracy rates are extraordinarily high. Children, whose families can afford the cost of education, walk as far as three hours to and from school.
Before COFHED’s involvement in Lougou, only 30 percent of school-age children attended school. Thanks to COFHED’s school sponsorship program, now virtually all children in Lougou attend school.
Community Goals for Education
- To add a classroom each year up to 9th grade and eventually 12th grade
- To increase economic activities so families are able to pay tuition for their children.
- To educate their children so they can be productive citizens for Lougou and Haiti
- To help over-aged students learn a trade
- To pursue economic activities to sustain La Petite Académie de Lougou, university students and highschool students.
- To help students pursue higher education so they can return to help Lougou and other villages in participatory processes for sustainable development.
How you can help:
- You can donate toward a classroom for the upcoming 3rd graders. For more information click here
- You can help a college student planning to return to serve the community with tuition. For more information click here
- You can help parents in Lougou pursue economic activities to sustain the education of their children. Click here to learn about their short-term, mid-term and long-term goals to achieve sustainability.
- You can help an over-aged student learn a trade click here
Learn more about how you can help.
Community Accomplishments in Education:
- As of winter 2010, 388 students from Pre-K to University attend school in Lougou, Camp-Perrin, Cayes and Port-au-Prince. However, university and college and technical training in Port-au-Prince for 6 Lougou students got disrupted because their school buildings collapsed in the January 12th, 2010 earthquake. These students now back in Lougou were pursuing degrees in medicine, engineering, business accounting and administration, and carpentry and woodworking.
- La Petite Académie de Lougou, the community’s own school, started in 2006. The school building houses 2 pre-k classes, one kindergarten, first grade and 2nd grade. The plan is to add a class every year up to 6th grade.
- Two of the kindergarten teachers are from Lougou. The Lougou Education Fund paid for their training and they have been teaching in Lougou for 4 years.
- The director of La Petite Académie graduated with a license in elementary education in 2009 and is also from Lougou. He also teaches second grade.
- In 2008, two other students graduated as technicians in electricity and mechanics. The electrician wired the Lougou school building to ready it for electricity.
- In Les Cayes, a total of 10 students (8 from Lougou and 2 from Saut-Mathurine) are pursuing training in various fields: 3 in elementary education, 1 in business administration, 1 in nursing, 2 in agronomy, 1 in masonry and 2 home economics.
Sanitation
A latrine for each household is a voted community priority. When COFHED first visited in 2004, there were no latrines in the community. COFHED helped the community build two 4-stall latrines and the Lougou Latrines Committee found some resources to build 40 more throughout the village.
Community Goal
To solve part of the village’s sanitation problems, the community would like to build 100 additional latrines as a response to their need for sanitation facilities.
How you can Help
- You can contribute toward a latrine for a family.
- The cost for a family latrine is $600.00 dollars. The latrines will be made of concrete blocks with pits of 20-25 feet deep to protect against contamination of food and water supplies. Each latrine will have a tin roof and measure two meters in height by 1.6 meters in length and width.
Potable Water
Like in most rural areas in Haiti, Lougou residents suffer from lack of access to safe drinking water. The river is their main source of drinking water. The community identified lack of potable water as one of their top concerns.
Community goals for water
- To provide safe drinking water for everyone in the village
- To create and maintain a sustainable potable water source
- To decrease the incidence of waterborne diseases
How you can Help
- You can bring to Lougou your technical expertise in helping the community with a water treatment system or tap into an existing system nearby.
- You can donate toward the community “Adequate Safe Drinking Water Fund”