Citizenship education
Learning at school and in society

Cahos community support program

Cahos region, Haiti

The Cahos chain community support program, northeast of Haiti, separating the Arbonite Plain from the Central Plateau, aims at involving parents in their children's schooling process. School committees, composed by teachers and parents, have been created to get in charge of their children's school and to initiate projects that allow its evolution. The project's main objective, among others, is involving the concerned communities in the field of education. In fact, the idea is to make parents become aware of their moving role in their children's educational process.

The group of parents is engaged in facing the difficulties met by teachers and motivators of the Cahos schools: lack of chairs in the classrooms, equipment deterioration, book stock renewal, etc. Some parents have helped with the transport of building materials (sand, stones, cement, etc.), or with the carrying of schoolbooks from the school program depot to the school (a three-hour walk!). Having progressively become project initiators, the school committees and the parents have bought eleven chairs for the teachers. In 1999, they started a project to close a schoolyard. The program helped them by buying the necessary material and the parents were in charge of its realization. Then, each school committee got ready to sign a contract with InterAid that specifies everyone's commitment in the school. The same year, in the 38 supported schools, 14 "book projects", 16 "equipment projects" and more than ten "building projects" have been realized on the committees' request with the program's support.

After the "return" of democracy by the end of 1994, the Haitian State wants to promote education, but always favoring the villages. In the Cahos region, poorly developed, this project has underlined the fact that the future of schooling lies mostly upon the parents' capacity of commitment with their children's school, with the aim of progressively assuming an increasing role in its administration.

Christian ACLOQUE
Sector Head for the Cahos region.
InterAid
44, Rue de la Paroisse
78000 Versailles-France
Tel.: 01 390 238 59
Fax: 01 395 311 28
E-mail: interaid@magic.fr
Or
Christine KARROUM
Ruelle Lechaud, N°2 bis Bourdon, Port-au-Prince - Haiti
Tel/Fax: 00 509 245 03 04
E-mail: interaid@haitiworld.com
Web site: http://www.interaid.org/

Institutional Partners
Aide et Action NGO

The InterAid intervention in the Cahos region started in 1984. The Cahos communities support program phase started in 1998.

Internal evaluation (see yearly synthesis of 1999)