Poubѐl Ayiti: Keeping The Streets Of Haiti Clean And Bringing Awareness Towards Environmental Changes Through Community Services

According to their Facebook page, “PouBèl Ayiti is an artistic environmental movement aimed to keep the streets of Haiti clean. Created to combat deforestation, nurture the environment and to promote a clean lifestyle. Geared to children across the island, this project is also used as an educational tool to bring more awareness and action towards climate changes. With a mission to collaborate with students from neighboring schools, artists, and locals to encourage the community to keep trash off the streets for a cleaner Haiti. To bring awareness towards environmental issues, such as deforestation, global warming, and acting effectively through community service.”

Angie Bell, who has initially started with the project, is from Cap-Haitien, Haiti, but currently reside in the state of Florida, USA. Going back to Haiti, particularly to his hometown Cap-Haitien, she noticed the problem of trash on the streets. She wanted to come up with a way to possibly alleviate this problem. Eventually, she teamed up with some other people and came up with some plausible solutions. Angie and her team believe that educating people on how to keep a clean environment is a fundamental foundation for a healthy society as that contribute to public health.
They wanted to do an activity that involves children and young adults, fun and educative event that would teach them the importance of a clean environment.

Poubѐl Ayiti has two meanings: Pou yon bѐl Ayiti, and Poubѐl Ayiti.

Last year, they organized their very first event as a test-run where they focused on donating trash cans to schools and other places. However, for this year’s event, there was a line-up of different programs.
First, they start of the day with an Awareness Walk. They march from Lakay Restaurant to the Cultural Center of Jacques Stephen Alexis. “Every student, member of the media, and our delegation walked the streets of Cap-Haitien with pride in the idea to promote a cleaner environment with the contribution of the police force.”
Then, they had a Panel of Discussion with several influencers such as Davidson Toussaint and Samuel Dameus. They discussed the link between waste management and tourism development. This was followed by a second panel debating on practical usage and waste management in Haiti with Hovard Guerrier, Louino Robillard, and Edson Lubin. Maritza Boudoir introduced the latter group and moderated by Katie-Flore Fils-Aime
Lastly, Creation of Cans was an activity led by two amazing artists, Ama Makeda and Olrich Exantus with the help of Stephen Italien from Atelier La Difference in Cite Soley who was also teaching diverse ways of using plastic bottles to create garbage cans.

Several schools were invited to have their students participate at the day-long event. At first, the school administrations were skeptical not because of the project, but for the responsibility of the school and the safety of the students. However, they ended up appreciating the event. The students were super excited throughout the event. They loved the creativity portion as it was exciting, engaging and fun for them. Now everyone wants to join the next time, stated Savinia (one of the team members).

Last year, after the first event, Angie and her team decided to get some more people all over Haiti and in the U.S. to assist with this year’s event. Many people reached out. They received requests from volunteers who wanted to collaborate. This year, several individuals traveled to ensure that they had an excellent long-day event. They are keeping the core team for future events. They are currently looking to foster new relationships and bring in new partners for 2019.

The ultimate vision is to make this becomes a viral program in all cities in Haiti, to have a trash management system, not only to provide trash cans to the population but to also educate them on how to keep a clean environment.
“The population is willing to dispose of the trash the way it should be, but there is a lack of resources for them to dispose of the trash,” stated Savinia.

Consequently, the team at Poubѐl Ayiti is working with a private institution to take the trash cans away as they are filled up. The city is not too responsive about that yet. In Port-au-Prince, Delmas, they have enough trucks to collect the garbage, but not in all parts of Port-au-Prince, and it is a challenge to find a suitable location for garbage disposal.

At the moment, there is no other organization working on the trash system in Haiti nor advocating for this significant problem, and we applaud Poubѐl Ayiti for taking such initiative. Stay in touch with them regarding their next event or reach out to know how you can bring this one-day event to your city in Haiti by emailing them at poubelayiti@gmail.com. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram.