January 9, 2008

Besides all of the hard work, touring, and networking we’ve been doing here in Haiti. Every so often we have group discussion evenings or afternoons depending on if it is a rainy day. We also have watched a couple documentaries about the current political situation in Haiti.

One of the issues that has reoccurred often is Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Both SOIL and SOL (the Haitian sector of SOIL) are NGOs. SOIL, I believe, is registered in the US and SOL is registered in Haiti. There are many obstacles to forming and sustaining an NGO; it seems that there are more forces working against NGOs than are working for them which to me seems extremely ironic considering these are the organizations that are trying to make a difference within the world. Let me give a few examples of these obstacles:
1. Bureaucracy/red tap: As I mentioned above, SOL and SOIL are both registered in their respective countries, but they must also be registered as international NGOs, a step that neither organization has yet reached. They would also like to be registered in each other’s countries in order to receive non-profit status. This is determining their tax free status as well as many other benefits that they would be able to receive from this. In addition to these few steps that both groups are still working on, SOIL and SOL had to both become incorporated. As you can see, it can be a long and tedious process to set up an NGO.
2. Fundraising: This is also a very difficult part of working for and NGO. SOIL and SOL are both currently still working on meager salaries in order to you most of the donated and fundraised money to go toward the many projects that they are working on. Fundraising can be one of the most difficult things to do in order to run an NGO. As students, all of us on the trip are going to try to help out with this while we are back at home in order to help alleviate this hardship from SOIL and SOL.
3. Focus/Mission: A third obstacle that many NGOs face is identifying a unique mission statement and really finding a focus for their work. Sasha and Sarah have both mentioned how hard it was to do this. I also think that they both still believe there is work to be done in this area, although recent progress as eased both of their minds greatly. SOIL’s mission statement as written in the first edition of their news letter says, “Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. We believe that the path to sustainability is through transformation, of both disempowered people and discarded materials, turning apathy and pollution into valuable resources. SOIL promotes health, agriculture productivity, and environmental destruction. We attempts to nurture collective creativity through developing collaborative relationships between community organizations in Haiti and academics and activists internationally.”
4. Trust: The fourth and final issue that I am going to address is the issue of trust. SOIL has worked extremely hard throughout its lifetime to build trust among the organization and the communities in which it works. This is the only way that the work that SOIL and SOL is doing will be sustainable. Many other NGOs come into the city and do a small clean up project. They will wear matching t-shirts and work for a day or maybe even a week. Camera crews will come and take photos, and then they will leave, sometimes without even finishing the work. Sasha, Sarah, Kevin, Josapha, Shantal, Marcoal, and Bobo have all at different times expressed their frustration with this system. They told us of a story of one group that came in and dug out all of the garbage from the canals and then left. That may seem great, but with the first rain, all of the garbage tumbled back into the canals and things returned to business as usual. These groups do short term work not sustainable work as they should be. If they had wanted to implement sustainable change they would have found and bought the land for a dumping site and given the communities the resources for garbage collection and dumping. This would have aided the garbage situation is a sustainable manner.

I know that all of this obstacles and this blog are depressing to think about, but SOIL is an example of an NGO that has overcome, and will overcome, many of these obstacles in the future.