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 address: 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 à 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).
Preface
2023 Was a year of severe detoriation in the overall situation in Haiti. This of course has had its negative effects on the entire Haitian population, as well as on our people in Île a Vache. But that hasn’t been the only curse to affect our project, since 2023 turned out to be the dryest year in 45 years. And this has destroyed not only our first harvest of bananas, but also (at least) part of the plants.
By the end of 2023 we have still one student left in our program: she has not been able to graduate so far since central governmental services in Port au Prince are closed or not functioning properly, and for this reason the graduation cannot take place. It is not clear when this will be possible.
Because, as we already mentioned before, too many graduates from our program are not able to find regular jobs we decided not to take in new students but to aim at creating one or more bigger startups, in which in due time several of our graduates and possibly more members of the Ile à Vache community will find an income.
In cooperation with our ex-student/trainee we started a banana plantation on Île a Vache. Due to the lack of rain in the maturing season of the first harvest, this harvest has failed.
2023 in hindsight
* In 2023 Bithovens St Firmin continued to be our local collaborator for the educational part of our program. He fulfilled his tasks to our satisfaction. Because of huge inflation in Haiti the costs of telephone credit increased, and for that reason we increased the compensation from USD $ 15,- to USD $ 22,- per month. Meanwhile, due to the fact that we are fading out this part of our program, and the fact that from the beginning we aimed to discontinue our project after 5 years (that became already 9), his tasks are diminishing, which of course he regrets. The only task left by the end of 2023 will be to organize the graduation of our last student. It is not clear when this can take place.
* There remains now 1 student (Wideline in pedagogics) in our program. We hope she will be able to graduate in 2024. During the entire year of 2023 we provided her with US$ 75 per month as pocket money for nurture. The last period she was mainly engaged in writing a thesis.
* Overall: From the in 2015 tested group A, all students that were waiting for admittance in our project have joined. No more students have been admitted since 2019. All together in 2023 no one graduated, bringing the total to 17, 1 continues her studies.
* Since the main goal of the Foundation is to offer vocational schooling to young people from Île à Vache during a period of 5 years (starting in 2015) as of 2020 the project is closed for new admittances. We have sufficient financial room to phase out (our last student still attending school) during an extra 8th year (2023).
* When necessary, we reimburse the housing costs (as we did for our last student) and of course we pay monthly food and drinks. Since basic living costs have increased considerably in Haiti, we put the monthly fee up from USD $ 60,- to USD $ 75,-.
* This year our startup Cybercafé Ideal Multi Service continued its services as far as possible. It appears that the supply of ink/toner refills and the technical maintenance of the equipment remains to be a big challenge. The refill bottles have to be ordered in and transported from abroad, which takes time and money. Due to the very unsafe situation in Haiti delivery of these orders turns out to remain hardly possible at all. We ordered a new printer and ink and toner refills (sufficient for at least 1 year of refills) in the USA in the spring of 2022. We had organized for transportation by a sailor who had the intention to go there the same spring. But due to the big safety challenges in Haiti, and some technical problems he decided to cancel the trip. We tried our best to find an alternative, but at this moment Haiti has such a bad safety profile, that hardly any boat goes there anymore. Sending the equipment by courier would cost a fortune. Finally, we found a very courageous sailing project (International Rescue Group) that has the intention to sail to Ile à Vache in 2023 but who postponed his plans time and again. As we speak this still has to happen, and we can only hope that sometime he will sail and deliver. Until that time the Cybercafé Ideal Multi Service had to close its doors. We helped them pay for the office room, since without any income they cannot pay for this themselves.
Our former student business administration, Ubain founded a banana (plantain[1]) plantation in the relatively safe surroundings of Ile à Vache in 2022. A terrain (with water availability) was rented and 2400 sprouts were bought and planted with our financial assistance.
2400 young banana plants
Plantation April 2023
The intention is to provide herewith for basic and healthy food in the Haitian diet. For that reason, there will always be demand for the harvest. Besides, plantains are not severely threatened by diseases, they grow and bear fruit fast and they multiply themselves regularly, so that the perspective is that the investment we did would pay out soon and be sustainable. About the cultivation there is a lot of knowledge locally available.
The plan is that as soon as (after about 1 year) income will be generated by the first harvest a part of that would be reinvested in the business, possibly also to diversify production. After that, step by step, when we see good economical results and when our business administrator will give proof that he is working for and with those ex-students that are interested in participation in the project, we will make the funds of our Foundation fully available locally for this project. Our role could become more in the background. Finally, the Foundation could be dissolved.
However, so far, these simple but promising perspectives have not materialized. As usual, things in Haiti turn never out as expected. This time the climate (change?) was the culprit.
* Our initiatives have all these years been made possible by our contributors. After 8 years we see them gradually ending their connection to our project. This will be due to
1) the fact that we are changing our perspective from education to a start up by our graduates
2) the fact that they started their contributions to our project while our intention was a project that would continue for 5 years. Being 8 years already we can imagine that several of our contributors decided that it was time to stop their contributions.
3) There are nowadays many other issues that deserve our/their attention and aid, so probably after all these years of help to our project they want to change their perspective.
But there are still some very loyal contributors who enabled us to collect in 2023 € 4325,00, which nearly covered the costs of our activities. We even found a new sponsor, that specifically contributed very generously to our banana project. In 2023 a bigger part of our expenses has gone to this new start up (€ 2944), € 320 went to the cybercafe (rent for their shop, while it was closed down due to lack of new ink and toner) while still € 991 was spent on the educational part. The deficit was covered by the money that was still on our account form the past years.
* Our intention was to adjust the articles of association of our foundation to better facilitate this new direction. Because we are still awaiting the first results of the new initiative this has not yet been realized.
Finance
For the year 2023, we had available
+/- € 4325,-- from donations, of which by December 2023 we spent around € 4255,--
for our students and the new startup. With 1 student still to graduate in 2024
this will make up a major part of our expenses for the educational activities
of the project in 2023; we have now to count +/- US $ 500,-- for this.
The financial year 2022 has been closed with a negative result of € 813,--, but this is made up for by the money that was not spent the past years (€ 3874 by the start of 2023), so that we have € 3100 on our account by the start the year 2024.
Remarks about our project
- We put the perspective on work high on our list. After 8 years running our project, in which 17 (of the total of 18) 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. Given the rapidly detoriating political situation in Haiti this becomes even nearly impossible. Since poverty in Haiti in very widespread (unemployment according to the last known figures: more than 2/3 of the labor force has no formal job resulting in about 60% of the population living under the poverty line by estimates of 2012[1], meanwhile practically the whole population lives under the poverty line), purchasing power is very low, so small businesses will always be quite vulnerable, unless they provide for basic commodities. 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 add to the realization of our goals by helping our ex-students to set up small businesses.
- As already mentioned in our former annual reports in 2018 we set up a cybercafé (a kind of copy shop). Due to the anarchy in Haiti, we have been unable to provide them with ink and toner for the last 2 years. So the cybercafé had to shut down temporarily. While they have no income we paid for the rent of their shop-space. Since 1,5 years we found a sailing vessel on which the supplies are going to be shipped, but we wait already for a long time for this boat to get ready to sail. We cannot foretell at this moment when that moment will be.
- This first initiative provided
us with some knowledge and experience to figure out that starting up
(small) businesses is much more complicated than we expected it already to
be. When you have never lived with any long-term perspective (due to
poverty, an entirely dysfunctional government and regular natural
disasters) 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, where nothing is ever guaranteed and every day raises new
questions about how to survive.To encounter these challenges,
we are happy that in our own group of graduates we count somebody who graduated
in business administration. He appears to be just the right person at the right
moment for bringing our project to a next level. Together with him we figured
out the best way to set something off, that will have a bigger economic impact
not only for our ex-students, but for (a part of) the community in Ile à Vache. Also, we want our
initiatives to be sustainable. Given the deplorable safety situation in Haiti,
and the fact that at the moment we are writing this there is no effective
government in power, we came to the plan to invest into basics: plantains are
in the Haitian diet a basic and healthy food, plantains are strong and with no
great risk for diseases, they renew themselves, in about 1 year after planting
you can harvest, we don’t need (raw) materials from far away and the knowledge
for the production is locally available. So, this is the business that we
choose in 2022 to set up. It could become the economic basis for
diversification of products, and it can provide for money to invest in more
local businesses. Our former business administration student will lead this
business and its further development towards diversification and growth.Our intention is, once when it
is clear that this initiative will hold and blossom in the future, to enable it
to function independently in order that we can become consultants in the
background. Finally, our Foundation itself even can be dissolved.Regretfully the only thing we
are not able to control is the climate. As we all know there is a lot going on
in this. And yes, in Haiti the consequences of climate change are also being
felt.Although the year 2023 passed
by in a relatively positive way (no hurricanes, no earthquakes and in Ile a
Vache no riots either) by the beginning of 2024 we are confronted with the
following: (published in Dagblad de West, Surinam, March 1st
2024): “Since February the 1st several Caribbean regions have been
confronted with longtime draught: Antigua, Dominica, French Guyana, Guadeloupe,
Martinique, St Kitts, Surinam, North Belize, Eastern Cuba, Gyuana, HAITI,
Trinidad & Tobago and the windward Islands”.[2]And the World
Metereological Organisation mentions: “In the Caribbean, in Haiti, 78% of agricultural
producers reported that lack of water and/or precipitation was the main
difficulty in producing, and 44% reported a decrease in harvesting.”[3]This
situation detoriated since February 2024. The result of this is that by May 2024, when harvest of our plantation should
be ready, part of the plants on our plantation have died, and the rest is still
too small to bear fruit
By February 2024 part of the plants died
The surviving part is too smal to bear fruit
[2] Original text: “Vanaf 1 februari 2024 hebben verschillende Caribische gebieden al te maken gehad met langdurige droogte: Antigua, Dominica, Frans-Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Kitts, Suriname, Noord-Belize, Oost-Cuba, Noord-Guyana, Haïti, Trinidad & Tobago en de Bovenwindse Eilanden.”
[3] State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva 2024, p.21
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