Project Background

Beamont is a small town in the rural west of Haiti. It takes a whole day to travel from Port-au-Prince to Beaumont due to the bad road conditions.
After finishing our drinking-water-projekt with the MEVA-School in the summer of 2014, Dr. Anke Brügman, the person in charge at “Pwojè men kontre” invited us to visit the orphanage in Beaumont to gain an impression. The dedication and sacrifice of Anke Brügmann for “her” children left a lasting mark and convinced us that fast and reliable help is needed.

We left Beaumont knowing that we found a reliable partner “Pwojè men kontre” and that our know-how can be applied to this project in a useful and efficient manner.

Our current project can be divided into short-term and long-term goals.

The short-term goal was to optimize and relocate the spring and supply pipes for the district and the orphanage to ensure sufficient water supply. This was implemented in April 2015.

The long-term goal is to relocate the school and orphanage run by “Pwojè men kontre” to a new site. This has become neccessary due to lack of space at the old site as well as the construction of a national street directly in front of the orphanage. The building of this main road endangers the safety of the children on their way to school. With the relocation we want to ensure a nice, calm and safe environment for the children to grow and learn, whilst the buildings at the old site will be used for vocational training for the older students. The planning for the new site started in December 2014 and the construction began in August 2015 and will be completed in several construction phases on site in the years to come.

In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit the town of Beaumont. Eleven of our team members were on site and experienced first-hand how the entire region was devastated and most of the village was destroyed. The previous buildings of the orphanage and the school were badly damaged and to a certain extent can no longer be used. Thus, the planned gradual transition from the old to new site is no longer feasible. Our goal now is to speed up the construction of the new buildings in order to re-establish the living and learning space. An overview of the events can be found here.