As usual we publicize our obligatory Annual Report 2020
Annual Report 2020
Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok
Board: Mw. J. du Bois-Minholts, president
Mw. L.M. Kuijer, secretary
Mw. R. van der Kroef, treasurer
Website: http://ileavache.blogspot.com/
Email adres: reinhildevdk@gmail.com
Bank : NL06TRIO 0391025457
Address: Jensemaheerd 147, 9736 CK Groningen, The Netherlands
Postal address : Postbus 1485, 9701 BL Groningen, The Netherlands
Telephone: + 31654786602
RSIN: 8555.41.143
The Foundation
aims to raise money to offer adolescents from the village of Kay-Kok, Ile a
Vache, Haiti the opportunity to attend to vocational training thus enabling them
to earn an income.
Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok is enrolled in the Foundations and Associations
Register of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and is recognized by the Dutch tax
authority as a charity organization (ANBI).
In this report you can read about the most important developments within our project in the year 2020.
Preface
2020 Was not a very positive year, generally spoken, but also the Foundation had to deal with several disappointments. In the first place there was an immense loss due to the unexpected passing away of our local collaborator Mme. Joleine Placide in March. Secondly, because of the pandemic and new riots in Haiti during the year 2020, several things that we had planned to accomplish (see our Policy Plan 2020) have been delayed again.
But fortunately there were positive developments as well. We were very glad that Mme. Joleine’s second son, Edisson – who was already involved in our project – was willing and able to take over her tasks. Secondly in the last semester of 2020 schools reopened. And finally: our first startup, the cybercafé (copy- and print shop) was able to open its doors in May, because of the closure of the schools it had a slow start, but after the summer, when schools opened up business was becoming better.
2020 in hindsight
- In March our local collaborator Mme. Joleine fell severely ill (she likely has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage). Her son, Edisson accompanied her to the hospital where she died after a week. This is a very heavy loss, in the first place for the family, from which she was the beloved centre and power plant. She managed, poor as she was, to bring up her 7 children to responsible and nice adults and she offered all of them the opportunity to a secondary education. For our project she has been during 2 ½ years the person to fix all kinds of bugs and to steer everything and everybody in the right direction. We are very grateful for all her efforts and we will miss her dearly. Fortunately her second son, Edisson, was, as her translator (she did hardly speak French) already well involved with our project. So he was able to take things seamlessly over form her. Since then he is his mothers successor as our localcollaborator, to our great satisfaction.
- Three of our five remaining students were supposed to graduate in 2020. But since the schools have been closed from April until September (and also had started in November 2019 instead of September) everything was delayed for at least half a year. By December 2020 the first of these 3 finally graduated: Figaro Pierre became book keeper/accountant. In the first months of 2021 the other 2 are supposed to receive their diploma’s (agronomics and business administration) as well.
- We had 2 students in their first year (communications/journalism and pedagogical sciences) who were supposed to start their next academic year in September 2020. But that has also been delayed, due to the closure of the schools between April and September. So they continued an extended first academic year and we hope they will be able to finish their studies by the end of 2021 or in the first half of 2022. We were able to provide Wilnick Joseph, studying communications and journalism with a for his future indispensible laptop.
- Overall: From the in 2015 tested group A, all students that were waiting for admittance in our project have now joined. No more students have been or will be admitted as of 2020. All together in 2020 1 student graduated, 4 continued their studies: 2 in their (extended) last year and 2 with one more year ahead, while they all have to face a delay of about half a year.
- Of course all this is only possible because we have a group of very loyal contributors, who continue to sustain our project. So again we were able to collect € 9.700,00, which was enough to cover the costs, also the costs that will be payable in 2021. We were still able to keep a small buffer intact.
- Since one of the goals of the Foundation is to offer vocational schooling to young people from Île a Vache during a period of 5 years (starting in 2015) as of this year the project is closed for new admittances. As we had already observed last year we have sufficient financial room to phase out (with those students still attending school) in order that those who started their courses last year, an extra 7th (2021/2022) will be added. Even with the delays because of the closure of the schools we will continue to support those students that have already been admitted to our project until all of them will have acquired their diplomas.
- As to the housing, this year again the female students (2) found their own accommodations. The house we rent houses the 3 young men.
- During the closure of the schools (April-September) the students went back to their families (online education is in Haiti not possible, while most people have no laptop). Although their daily expenses would be less than when they attend school, we still felt responsible for them. For this reason we paid them during this period half of the usual monthly money: US $ 30,-- per person.
- This year, after 1 ½ years of preparations and delays, at last our startup: Cybercafé Ideal Multi Service opened its doors in May. It became clear that, apart from the Laserjet, we had provided for already, an extra heavy duty (color)printer (an Office Jet) was needed. Via our network we were able to purchase one in Port au Prince.
- Since the most important clientele comes from the schools, the business made a slow start, while the schools were still closed (due to the pandemic) until September. This offered the opportunity to sort out several things. The most important one being the supply and the technique of ink refills. The refill bottles had to be ordered in and sent from the USA, which takes time and money. Regretfully the cheapest option uses USPostal for transportation, which is a very unreliable company. Several orders have not been delivered (so far). For that reason we are forced to use a more expensive one. We helped to find the information how to do the refills on Youtube. And finally, to order these purchases a debit card is required, so we helped them to acquire a debit card from their bank and gave instructions how to order online.
- We made an inventory of those former students that also wanted to start a small enterprise. Six of them came up with a (very rudimentary) plan. Our first experience (see above) learned us that starting up something in Haiti is not an easy ride. And we became aware that most of the wannabe entrepreneurs had in fact no idea about how to run a business, let alone how to organize the repayment of loans. We are still into the idea to help them to setup a small business, but we are also aware that this will take much more time than we expected at first. Nearly everything that is evident for us, is that not for Haitians. Training and guiding them will make up a much bigger part of the plan than we had thought in the beginning. We are trying to figure out how to manage this from a distance. To provide them with loans to start things up that they have to pay back in due time is also a very complicated issue: we have to find a way to learn these ex-students (people who never in their life had any money available) what this means for their business and that a loan is not a gift.
- Our intention was to adjust the goals of our foundation to facilitate this new direction better. This has not been realized in 2020.
Finance
For the academic
year 2020/21, we had available € 9500,--
from donations, of which by December 2020 we spent around € 5100,-- which
leaves € 4400,-- for the second half of the academic year. Based on our
experiences so far the cost per person per year could be maximized on € 1600,--
(+ $ 1700, --), of which a part has been postponed to be paid in 2021 while
the new academic courses (that was supposed to start in September 2020) start only
in 2021.
Experience learned that graduation- and diploma costs every year make up a larger part of the expenses in the last year of the student. With 3 students to graduate in 2021 (the study of communication/journalism is supposed to take 1 ½ years) this will make up a major part of our expenses for the course 2020/21, we have now to count on US $ 500 – 600 per person.
The financial year 2020 has been
closed with a positive result of € 1716-. The buffer is now 4.700 and
since we have paid already a large part of our expenses of the year 2020 in
advance (several of them being part of the expenses of the extended academic
year 2019/20), there is still enough money on the account to cover the
remaining expenses (including the graduations) for the academic year 2020/2021.
The school fees for the 2 students that will start a new academic year in 2021
(that was meant to be the academic year 2020/21) amount to + $ 860, -. In
the academic year 2020-2021 an average of $ 100,- per person is being spent on
schooling materials (books, copybooks, rucksack, tools, laptops, calculators,
internships) until December. We have rented the house, where the 3 boys live, this
time for half a year (since 2 of them are supposed to be graduated by the end
of March 2021). The person that will stay in school after March 2021 will be
helped to find suitable housing. Rent is $ 500,-- for 6 months and $ 10,-- for electricity
monthly. The remuneration to the boarding houses of the other students who found
a shelter on their own accord can be maximized on € 150,-- pp / py.
To these costs should be added the monthly cost of food and drink. This is set
on $ 60,-- per person per month. Although the schools have been kept closed
from April until September, we decided to pay half of the monthly costs
nevertheless during these months as well, since the students went back to live
with their families but still have no other way of income, waiting for their
schools to reopen.
We helped our collaborator to start a new bank account, in order to circumvent Western Union. This results also in better exchange rates. After the passing away of his mother our new local collaborator, Edisson, was able to continue the account while he and his mother were already joined owner of the account.
Remarks about our project
1. We put the perspective on work high on our list. After 6 years running our project, in which 14 students graduated, we have to conclude that finding a job in Haiti, even with a good starting qualification in hand like our students have, is very hard.
Since poverty in Haiti in very widespread (more than 40,6% of unemployment, 2/3 of the labor force is underemployed resulting in about 60% of the population living under the poverty line by accounts of 2016 and 2017, in the mean time these figures will have become even worse, because of the riots and the pandemic in 2019/20/21[1]), purchasing power is very low, so small businesses will always be quite vulnerable.
Certainly waiting for a job leads to nowhere. Starting up a small business is nearly the only way in Haiti to reach some kind of income, apart from emigration. For this reason we decided to help our ex-students, who come up with a good plan, to set up a small business. For this we had available some earmarked money in 2018 with which we have been able to fund a substantial investment in our first startup.
After more than 1 ½ year of preparations and waiting for the society to calm down the first startup took off in May 2020 with a so called cybercafé (copy shop, internet café, general service point for administrative activities and maybe in due time even more). As already mentioned there have been many challenges on her way. From closure of the schools (due to the pandemic and later to riots) via electrical current supply problems, to supply of toner, ink and other commodities that are not available in Haiti.
This first initiative provides us with some knowledge and experience to figure out how we can realize more of these plans with our ex-students in due time. We already discovered that this will be much more complicated than we expected it already to be. When you have never had any long term perspective (due to poverty and mismanagement by the government) you have learned to improvise to survive, and that is where Haitians are absolute champions in. But to plan and to organize continuity, in short, to manage a business, how small it may be, asks for other skills. And that kind of skills are hard to acquire in a country like Haiti.
Our intention is to provide new startups with small loans, that they should be able to pay back in 3 years. Before this can be executed, we should provide for some kind of practical training ‘how to manage a small business in Haiti’.
When we are able to set up a system of providing for loans to these startups we have already at least one investor. Because the income they earn from a small business will be very modest, it is important to count with the fact that these loans can only function when they are long term loans with very low costs: binding the people to tight repayment conditions will lead to big disappointments on both sides. For this reason everything has to be based on a solid and real business plan, learning from our first experience, listening very good to the experiences of our first startup and of our collaborator, training the wannabe entrepreneur intensively and last but not a lot of mutual trust.
2. The Board nor any other person in any way involved in the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok receives remuneration or compensation for their work from the funds of the foundation. Our onsite collaborator receives for her work nor a reward nor compensation from the Foundation. We only compensate the cost of data credit of our collaborator, in order to facilitate regular communication about the project.
We have an private financial arrangement with our local collaborator Edisson St firmin. This is organised entirely outside of the budget of the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok.
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