Together: Building A New Carrefour Feuilles

Together: Building A New Carrefour Feuilles
Carrefour Feuilles is a highly marginalized zone within Port-Au-Prince, where youth form a particularly vulnerable group, characterized by high unemployment, hunger and extreme poverty. Many young adults find themselves victims of crime in their own neighborhoods.
With funding from American Red Cross under the LAMIKA program, Global Communities is implementing a community development project in the area. In mid-October, Global Communities began to reconstruct the Cavalo Corridor, one the of the main pedestrian access paths in the zone.

Jean Ekson Etienne is 20. Because his family could not afford to send him to vocational school, he has no profession. For over 15 years, he has lived in the Campeche zone of Carrefour Feuilles. To survive, he often sells telephone replenishment cards in the streets of Port-Au-Prince. But through the LAMIKA project, Jean gained a step forward when he was hired by the contractor reconstructing the Cavalo corridor.
Like other young people in his neighborhood, he was hired as a laborer to transport rocks and sand necessary to build the retaining walls along the corridor.
Jean is doubly affected by the corridor’s progress. He lives in a house on the path of the project, built of old, degrading metal sheets, cardboard and wood. To improve access in the area, he gave up a small piece of his house on the corridor itself. In return, the LAMIKA program will improve the remainder of his home.  “I am very pleased that the project rebuilt my house and built the corridor where people can circulate more easily,” Jean said. “This will improve the living conditions of young people and others in our neighborhood.”