Cunina ambassador Nathalie Meskens in Haiti: a travel report

I have been involved as an ambassador for NGO Cunina for two years.   Cunina is a small-scale Flemish organisation which aims to make education available to under-privileged children by means of foster parenting.  I have myself been the foster parent of a little girl in the Philippines for years.

Cunina works in five developing countries: Haiti, Nepal, Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines.  In the last 20 years, more than 10,000 children have been given a place at school and more than 40 projects, of all sizes, have been completed.  Like the other Cunina ambassadors Sabine de Vos and Luc Appermont, I became closely involved with the work of the organisation as soon as I met them.  I was eventually put forward to travel with them to Haiti in order to see the difference Cunina makes with my own eyes.  I am a purely voluntary ambassador, I don't get paid for my work and meet all my own travel costs.  That's something really special about Cunina:  funds raised are always used where needed and only where needed.

Haiti here we come!
On 4th May I left my busy life as an actress and singer behind me for ten days and we left, with a suitcase full of t-shirts and balloons, for Haiti, where we were going to celebrate the opening of the new Mamosa-Cunina House with an enormous party.  Just to remind you: on 12th January 2010, Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, was hit by the worst natural disaster in more than 200 years.  An size 7 earthquake on the Richter Scale took 300,000 lives, injured tens of thousands and left 1.5 million homeless.  But as if the earthquake had, like dominos, moved on to the next country, the media attention vanished.

Sophie Vangheel, the chairman and founder of Cunina, has been working with the Haitian people for the 20 years, despite the disasters and polticial unrest which have stricken the country.  In 1989 Sophie met Father Jan Hoet and launched fosterships and projects on Haiti's Central Plateau.  When, in 1995, Father Jan moved to the capital and established Mamosa, a hostel for students, she decided to follow him and support his project.

As the philosopher Nietzsche wrote: "Happiness and unhappiness are sisters, even twins".  The earthquake was, for Mamosa, a double-edged sword.  When Cunina heard that the Mamosa House had been destroyed by the earthquake, Sophie did what she has been doing for years: she mobilised support.  Thanks to the warm response from Flanders, sufficient funds were raised to realise the dream that Father Jan and Sophie had been harbouring for years: the purchase of a Mamosa-Cunina house.

But Cunina dreamed of much more and returned to where it had all begun, Haiti's Central Plateau, to set up projects to improve the quality of education there.  Cunina believes that it's not enough just to give children access to education, but that the education has to be of good quality.

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Port-au-Prince: first impressions
Our luggage rolls quickly off the carousel at the tiny airport of Port-au-Prince and we hurry outside to be immediately set upon by taxi drivers and porters.  The first impression that Haiti gives feels peculiarly African: the houses, colours and general bustle.  It was originally populated by Indians, but the current inhabitants have their roots based primarily in Africa, from where they were brought as slaves.

Quickly enough we saw Father Jan through the black masses, standing with a few Cunina foster children.  We were incredibly enthusiastically received.  Everybody was kissed on each cheek, probably a French influence.  Father Jan then drove off to the Mamosa-Cunina hostel with three giggling girls on the back seat - not us, I have to say, but the Cunina foster children!

I had somehow expected to arrive in a diaster area.  Large parts of the city were actually still standing.  It became obvious later that the worst affected areas were in the housing areas on the edge of the city.  I can see from the road lots of tents and temporary shelters, made of plastic sheeting and corrugated iron or worse.

There is a stamp from the Ministry of Transport, Health and Communication, on nearly every house in the city.  More than 250,000 houses have been assessed.  180,000 were defined as damaged or destroyed - 22% of these get a red stamp and have to be razed to the ground, 27% get a yellow stamp and can be repaired and 51% get a green stamp and are inhabitable.

You don't immediately get the impression that the city is unsafe.  I open my window and inhale the atmosphere of life on the streets.

Trucks overloaded with coal, food or other supplies drive by, huffing and puffing, sending up a black smoke.  The streets are extermely dirty, even though there are large wheelie bins around.  Colouful, overcrowded "tap taps" and brightly painted taxi buses, covered with Bible quotes and proverbs, cheer up the streets, as do the colouful uniforms of the children who are lucky enough to go to school.  The girls' hair is in neat bunches tied with large bows.   We also see less fortunate children.  These use a dry cloth to move a bit of dust around on the cars waiting at traffic lights, in the hope of getting a few gourdes (the local currency).

It seems as if the whole city survives on small business.  There are women sitting on every pavement, with their wares laid out in front of them.  The lucky ones protect themselves against the burning sun with a colourful umbrella.  Everything is sold per piece: cigarettes, matches, soap, stock cubes, chewing-gum, razor blades.  The men work as car mechanics, furniture makers and cleaning shoes or they sell lamps and batteries.

I began to love Port-au-Prince after just a few days there.  The name "Cunina" – Latin for "Goddess of the Cradle" - has never held so much significance.  You would not want to have been born here.

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Mamosa-Cunina House: a new beginning
We eventually arrive at the new Mamosa-Cunina House, via the Route de Delmas, the road which links the capital, Port-au-Prince, and Pétionville.  We drive through a large gate into a spacious courtyard where several students are standing waiting for us and welcome us warmly.  In a city which is suffocating under exhaust fumes, congestion, heat, smells and dirt, the Mamosa-Cunina is an oasis.

The house has five large bedrooms and the same number of bathrooms a living room, an office and a kitchen.  Stairs at the back of the house lead from the kitchen to the inner courtyard and another house with three smaller rooms.  This is where Jasmin lives, one of those who lived in the house at the time of the earthquake and who ended up with his foot trapped under the rubble.  With his never-ending optimism, he won my heart immediately.   He now has a prothesis in place of his lower right leg, but it doesn't seem to give him any pain.   He hops happily around and brings a smile to the faces of all the students.  He offers his hand to you whenever he can.

During my stay in the Mamosa-Cunina House I get to know the large family there.  Melanie is the 'mummy' of the family, the skipper of her ship. You will nearly always find her in the kitchen or in the inner courtyard preparing vegetables or chopping meat.  She gets up at 4 o'clock every morning to cook for the whole group.  She expects you to wash your hands before you sit down to eat!

Father Jan is the patriarch of the family.  With a gentle, but firm, hand he ensures that there is a respectful, warm and relaxed atmosphere in the house.  Nothing is too much trouble for him.

At the moment there are 19 students, aged between 16 and 29, living at the hostel, which is also the central point for of the Cunina fosterships.  Through the years more than 50 students have lived here.  Cunina's support is still incredibly important, as education in the capital city is prohibitively expensive.  Thanks to individual fosterships, the children can go to school every day.

Yasmina, who is 18 years old, is one of the Cunina foster children.  Her mother lives in a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince and works in a factory, but barely earns enough to support her family, let alone provide money for the schooling of her four children.  Yasmina has never known her father.  Like most of the children in Haiti, Yasmina was abandoned at a young age.  Thanks to the support of her Cunina foster parents, she has the opportunity to make her dream come true: that of studying medicine.

On the evening before the party the hostel is transformed into a beauty salon.  The girls plait each other's hair or put in hairpins and paint each other's nails.  They practise dances for the last time.  In the morning everyone is up early ready for the big day.  There are more than 120 invitees, including all the Cunina foster children who get a t-shirt and a balloon.  It's an enormous party with music, dancing and a delicious meal.  An unforgettable day for all the children.

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Good quality education

I am happy to be able to leave the bustle of the city behind me when, after a few days, we drive into the interior of the country.  We reach Haiti's Central Plateau through a mountainous, rough and infertile landscape.  Cunina is working with four schools here, offering a curriculum in Creole.  Lessons here are not given in French, the "elite" language used in the majority of schools in Haiti, but in Creole, the mother tongue of pretty much the whole population.  The thinking behind this is that a child has to first develop in its mother tongue before it can begin learning a new language.  Father Jan was for years one of the petitioners for a curriculum in Creole.

We visit two Catholic schools in the villages of La Victoire and Mombin Crochu, where 80 Cunina children are being supported through Cunina fostership.  We are received warmly.  The children have practised dances and plays and are beautifully dressed in their school uniforms.  Some girls are wearing their mother's shoes.  The priest in La Victoire speaks movingly: "What touches me today is not the party or the gifts.  What moves me is that Cunina is not afraid of earthquakes, cholera, poverty or bad roads and is here to help us.  Money is important but it is more important that it is given with love, person to person.  That Cunina is here today is worth more than a million dollars.  Thank you a thousand times!"

Cunina is going to set up new fosterships here every year, so that even more children have the opportunity of education.  These children are selected objectively through the women from the 'Komite Kiyè Bwa': the Wooden Spoons Commitee, a perfect metaphor, as the women, like wooden spoons, can stand the "heat" - pressure from those outside the community, jealousy and scheming.

After the Catholic schools, we also visit two Protestant schools, although you can hardly call them schools.  Two to three classes sit squashed together in some tumbledown buildings, divided sometimes only by a blackboard, sometimes with their faces turned around in the other direction.  There are large holes in the blackboards and the benches have been reduced to scarcely more than planks of wood.  One of the principals tells us that a wall once fell down while one of the staff was teaching.  If the weather is dry, the children are covered in dust.  When it is raining, they are covered with mud.

There are two piles of stones next to the schools.  The parents have gathered these to lay the foundations of the two new schools which Cunina is building.  The whole community is literally pulling their weight.

Cunina will build two new classrooms every year until there are two complete schools.  Only after that will Cunina set up new fosterships and train new teachers, because alongside buildings, well-trained teachers are fundamental in the provision of a good quality education.

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When I get back into the swing of things in Belgium, I often find myself thinking about the enormous pride and strength of the Haitian people.  "Nap degaje", is what they say: we will be okay again.  Strong and flexible like bamboo, they get up again after every knock-down.  The Haitians have won my heart.  I just hope now to be able to convince you, in turn, to help, because I have seen this with my own eyes: Cunina makes a world of difference in Haiti!

Nathalie Meskens

Help Cunina build a new school.