Haiti is home to mesmerizing beaches, tropical flowers, great food, and beauty reflective of the sun’s love affair with the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it is also home to hurricanes, earthquakes, torrential storms, flooding and the many issues that follow disasters, particularly in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Haiti is perpetually surrounded by poverty and uprisings that result in violence and damage to its already fragile foundation, making change seem impossible for those of us thinking about it from our office chairs or the comfort of our living room couch.
I would agree opportunities appear dim and easy to deem impossible, but if I lived in Haiti, change would be my only possible means of survival. That truth is the mission of the Haiti Impact Group (HIG), a local Haitian research group looking to change local narratives. Using the Fulcrum Community platform, local young professionals are developing mechanisms for conducting systematic research to re-inform the policies that determine the needs of Haiti and the means for addressing these needs. Given the many obstacles already mentioned, this is not an easy journey, but one that has to happen for change to occur. We chatted with Isabelle Clerie (pictured above), who leads the initiative. Here is her perspective on how to win the war for change in Haiti.
The Problem
Haiti simultaneously has a problem of information overload and not enough information to support the change they seek. Countless studies and data exist scattered across public, private, and international institutions. This scattering makes the information confusing and difficult to access.
Secondly, our partners have mostly worked with individual survey forms for monitoring and evaluation studies conducted in the past. Individual survey forms are time-consuming because surveyors must hand-write responses, which are then transcribed. This process causes issues like unreadable handwriting, leading to misrepresented information. Inaccurate conclusions about a site often result from these errors.
The Mission
HIG envisions a publicly accessible database of new and existing information. We are working with partners across the country, especially in rural communities, to develop systematic data-collection processes. This will inform better decision-making at local and national levels. Locally, we plan to teach communities how to use data to justify their needs. For example, a community producing more coffee than it can sell can self-report its assets. They can report the number of trees or the amount of land with geo-references. This information can inform infrastructure and budget objectives. Better roads give access to more markets. Nationally, we hope to provide clearer data on various indicators. This will allow us as Haitians to claim our own narrative.
Haiti Impact Group is working closely with CASELI, a local sister organization to Root Capital, to roll out the data collection mechanisms and train surveyors. The intention is to transition over 60% of their sites to Fulcrum by year-end. Youth groups across the country will be trained to use the app. In the event of a disaster, they can collect real-time data for response teams.
Haiti Impact Group Milestones
We successfully partnered with Spatial Networks (Fulcrum Community), CASELI (Root Capital) which builds our foundation and the ability to train, collect and document our data in real time and geo-spatially allowing us to visually tell our story in an organized and coordinated manner.
What change looks like
HIG’s mission is to build local narratives reflecting the people living, working, and playing in Haiti. To achieve this, we need accurate and open information available to everyone. Our aim is to re-inform policies and procedures for development in Haiti. This approach mitigates the negative impacts of biased and misguided development strategies.
Photo credits: Isabelle Clerie, iStockphoto
Fulcrum is a data collection platform that enables organizations to reduce costs, access critical data in real time, and improve decision making at every level. With Fulcrum, you can create custom apps using our simple drag-and-drop builder to turn your paper documents into digital forms that your field teams can quickly complete on mobile devices. Our software is available at no cost to humanitarian and volunteer disaster-relief organizations via Fulcrum Community.