06 April, 2011
ANSE-A-PITRES, Haiti. – As part of a cooperative agreement between the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Development Grants Program and the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA), a team of USAID evaluators spent a week at BRA’s offices in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in a knowledge exchange and monitoring experience where the officers verified the organization’s financial execution, monitoring procedures, and onsite activities for the agency-funded Women’s Empowerment Program taking place in 3 border communes of Haiti’s southeast department: Anse-a-Pitres, Thiotte and Grand Gosier. The program aims to organize and train 600 Haitian women and give them the tools they need to advance their own interests around issues of health, gender-based violence, food insecurity and financial/microcredit management.
A community meeting was also organized and held with approximately 200 active women, including 30 group representatives for an interactive session with the USAID officers where they presented their gratitude and experiences as project beneficiaries. “It was a great opportunity to hear their expectations and get a more profound understanding of some of the challenges they encounter,” said Mirlande Trazile, BRA’s Program Coordinator-Haiti. The women spoke enthusiastically about a sense of entitlement bestowed upon them through trainings on gender-based violence and financial/microcredit management and small-scale home agricultural gardens many of them have started to produce their own food. Following the meeting, field staff took the officers to visit some of the gardens in Anse-a-Pitres, Banane and Boucan Guillaume. “It was very exciting to see ripe vegetables in some of the gardens (cabbages and tomatoes) and hear about the different techniques taught as part of trainings to obtain better crops,” added Trazile.
