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Friday, 25 July 2025

Annual Report 2024 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

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

2024 was a year of not much activity for our Foundation. But in Haiti there were several issues that also affected our projects in Ile a Vache. Winter and spring of 2024 turned out to be the dryest in 45 years. And this has destroyed not only our first harvest of bananas, but also (at least) part of the plants. Meanwhile we are working to install an irrigation system.

By the end of 2024 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 are not functioning properly, and for this reason the graduation cannot take place. In the beginning of 2025, the fees for the graduation have been paid, but the date of the graduation itself is still not known by May 2025.   

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 Ubain Pierre, we started in connection to this strategy 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 for the main part.  

2024 in hindsight

ü  In 2024 Bithovens St Firmin continued to be our local collaborator for the educational part of our program. He fulfilled his residual tasks to our satisfaction. Meanwhile, due to the fact that we are fading out this part of our program, and to the fact that from the beginning we aimed to discontinue our project after 5 years (that became already 10), his tasks are diminishing, which of course he regrets. Our last student has finished her thesis by June 2024. The only task left is to organize the graduation of our last student, which was not possible in 2024.

ü  There remains now 1 student (Wideline in pedagogics) in our program. Until June 2024, we provided her with US$ 75 per month as pocket money for nurture. Since she finished her thesis in June, the finance has been stopped.

ü  Overall: From the in 2015 tested group A, all 18 students that were waiting for admittance in our project have joined. No more students have been admitted since 2019. All together in 2024 no one graduated, bringing the total to 17, 1 is waiting for her graduation.

ü  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 had sufficient financial room to phase out (our last student finished her studies in June) during an extra 9th year (2024).

ü  This year our first startup, Cybercafé Ideal Multi Service had to discontinue its services due to lack of materials. 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. 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 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 had the intention to sail to Ile à Vache since 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. 

 ü  Our former student business administration, Ubain founded a banana (plantain[1]) plantation in the relatively safe surroundings of Ile à Vache in 2022. This is the second startup we invested in. A terrain (with water availability from a well) was rented and 2400 sprouts were bought and planted with our financial assistance. 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 business plan included that as soon as (after about 1 year) income could 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 will 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 turn out as expected. This time the climate (change?) was the culprit.

 

ü  All these years our initiatives have been made possible by our contributors. After 9 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 9 years already we can imagine that several of our contributors decided that it was time to stop their contributions and we are very grateful for the extra time they already granted us with their donations.

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.

 

In 2024 we still received 295,--, which together with the money we still had left from the past year, covered the costs of our activities. In 2024 a bigger part of our expenses has gone to the plantain plantation ( 541), while still 418 was spent on the educational part and 420 on overhead (telephone credit for our collaborator on the educational branch and banking fees. The deficit was covered by the money that was still on our account from the past years.

ü  Our intention to adjust the articles of association of our foundation have not been realized, and the intention is now to close down the bank account in 2025 and to contribute the money left over after the graduation of our last student to the plantation start up.

Finance
For the year 2024, we had available +/- € 3317,--, of which by December 2024 we spent around € 959,-- on our student and the plantation. With 1 student still to graduate in 2025 this will make up a major part of our expenses for the educational activities of the project in 2025; we have now to count +/- US $ 700,-- for this.

The financial year 2024 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 (€ 3022 by the start of 2024), so that we have still € 1976 on our account by the start the year 2025.

Remarks about our project

  1. We put the perspective on work high on our list. After 9 years of 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 and security situation in Haiti this becomes even nearly impossible. Since poverty in Haiti in very widespread (unemployment according to the last known figures: more than 4/5 of the labor force has no formal job resulting in about 60-70% of the population living under the poverty line by different estimates[2], 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.
  2.  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 3 years. It seems to be nearly impossible for them to find the necessary supplies locally. So the cybercafé had to shut down temporarily. While they have no income we paid for the rent of their shop-space. Since 2,5 years we found a sailing vessel on which the supplies were supposed to be shipped, but we wait already since then for this boat to sail. We cannot foretell at this moment when that moment will be. 
  1. 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. 
  2. To encounter these challenges, we are happy that in our own group of graduates we count somebody who graduated in business administration. He is 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 Île 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 plants and with no great risk for diseases, they renew themselves, in normal circumstances 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 leads this business and its further development towards diversification and growth.
  3.  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. 
  4.  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 2024 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”.[3] 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.”[4]
  5. This situation detoriated since February 2024. The result of this is that by May 2024, when harvest of our plantation was supposed to be ready, ¾ of the plants on our plantation have died, and the rest was seriously behind in bearing fruit. Finally, around November, the first plaints could be harvested en have been brought on the market for a reasonable price.  

 

 April 2024: plants still too small to bear fruit


 

 April 2024: 3/4 of the plants died due to draught

 

 

In the meantime the first fruits 

appeared by August 2024  

 

 

The Board nor any other person involved in the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok receives remuneration or compensation for their work from the funds of the foundation. Our onsite collaborators receive for their work nor a reward nor compensation from the Foundation. We only compensate the cost of mobile data credit of our collaborator in the educational branch, in order to facilitate regular communication with the student, the school and us. We have a private financial arrangement with our local collaborators. This is organised entirely outside of the budget of the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok.


[1] ‘Bakbananen’

[3] 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.”

[4] State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva 2024, p.21

 

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