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Pandiassou is a small locality of approximately 20,000 inhabitants, located 5 kms South of the city of Hinche (the main city of the Central Plateau, 128 kms from Port-au-Prince). In Pandiassou, the Congregation of Little Brothers and Sisters of Incarnation (CPFSI) devotes themselves to mission based on action towards the socio-economic development of the peasantry. This catholic congregation, which has worked for 23 years in this area, defies the criticism given when preachers join a mission which is characterized by resignation and exploitation. It has been able to instil a new philosophy in the peasants and a methodology of work that brings happiness to the community of Pandiassou. Having settled here since 1977, at a time when the peasants faced chronic misery, the Brothers and Sisters of CPFSI agreed that resignation and exploitation are obstacles to the holiness of the Gospel. They developed a pragmatic philosophy relevant to the real needs of the peasants in the area. Brother Francklyn Armand, Director of CPFSI, believes that the Gospel and misery cannot co-exist. He affirms that God is love. This infinite love, he says, knows neither class nor race. For the dignitary Armand, the peasants are poor because they have been deprived of resources by the anarchic organization of the present world. "That is why," he continued, "we had to face certain challenges at the start of the activities of our religious institution here, first to help peasants find their daily bread and later on to accompany them on a path to break with the traditional practice of food aid." At that time, agriculture was neglected in Pandiassou due to the drought. CPFSI placed agricultural production in the centre of its activities in order to achieve its larger goals. Up to the end of the 1980s, the inhabitants of Pandiassou could not work more than 120 days per year and were at the mercy of rain. And the harvests became poorer and poorer, brother Armand explained. "The region became more and more a desert and the soil increasingly eroded. The smallest tree was cut down and thrown into the furnace for charcoal production, the most important economic subsistence resource of the Central Plateau," the farmer Nicolas Josias said, as he prepared his field to grow corn for fall. Mr. Josias, father of a nine-member family, underlined that the institution under the leadership of brother Armand took up the mission to transform the area into a brotherly village where peasants would live in agricultural bounty, in decent sanitary conditions and with a variety of educational services. The congregation also invested in some infrastructure, essential to the socio-economic development of the peasants. Seeking efficiency in production in order to meet the needs of the inhabitants of Pandiassou who had no cattle, nor trees, but just the soil, CPFSI developed with them an agricultural system for larger properties, following the system of "Kombitism" ("Togetherness" or "Hands in Hands"), a traditional practice of community people working together, which has almost disappeared in the peasantry. Under supervision, peasants work together on more than forty hectares of land. These plots are watered through a system of lakes built for this purpose. Watering the fields is done regularly through electric pumps installed besides the lakes. The lakes also serve to breed fish. Thanks to the work of brother Francklyn Armand , the peasants now plow and reap all year round. Their fish-breeding system also gets more and more prosperous. "Pandiassou, which 20 years ago was considered as the desert of the Central Plateau, has become one of the most important sites for supplying the market of Hinche with agricultural products and fish," Madsen Labbady, an agricultural counsellor who works in the region, said joyfully. In order to build on the skills, intelligence and know-how of farmers, the congregation of the Little Brothers and Sisters of Incarnation invested in training. It established an agricultural training centre in the community, which helps small peasants to develop their own techniques for preparing natural fertilizers, or processing and conserving their produce. The farmers participate in developing techniques for tree reproduction, in particular regarding the establishment of grafting and nursery systems to facilitate the reforestation of the area. Pandiassou is becoming a village where the secrets of kombitism have been rediscovered. As with informal education, CPFSI is also interested in the formal education of the youth and children of Pandiassou. Presently, the community has a classic and vocational school, which have a good reputation all over the Northern region of the country. Young girls and boys from everywhere in this region achieve their classical schooling while learning a skill. The classic section goes from Kindergarten and includes the first four years of secondary school. In the vocational training section, from their first year of high school, the youngsters can learn the skill of their choice: Agriculture, Shoemaking, Cabinet-making, Masonry, Carpentry, Electricity, Electronics, Informatics, Cooking and Pastry. Many of them, once finished with their studies, do find a job on the spot in the different activities of the congregation, according to their skills. Others may go elsewhere or create their own enterprise according to orientations given by the institution. "Moreover, the school gives us the opportunity to work in various production workshops. There we are able to produce upon the requests of several foreign organizations and companies," Sony Lepierre, a 19 -year old youth, rejoiced. Three years ago, young skilled workers of the school even put up a building company. This company is enjoying a good reputation throughout the Central Plateau, particularly in Hinche, the main city of this region. Thanks to the dynamism of these young professionals, the congregation of Pandiassou has been able to set up a social housing programme in the communty. This enables peasants to have a decent house, based on their paying a small monthly amount to a cooperative system, until the full payment of building a house is in place. The efforts of the congregation are invaluable with regard to sanitation and healthcare, a farmer declared. Since the summer of 1998, Pandiassou possesses a well-equipped dispensary, linked to a modern hospitalization system and with skilled personnel, who mostly are foreign volunteers. Today, the work of the Congregation of Little Brothers and Sisters of Incarnation starts to spread out nationally. Since November 1999, based on a contract with the Haitian government, the institution has committed itself to building about fifty lakes in the North-East of the country. The construction of those lakes, which will take one year, aims to set up an irrigation system for close to 40,000 hectares of land and also install fish-breeding facilities in some localities of the region. With the help of two Cuban specialists, these multi-purpose lakes will enable to produce about 350,000 pounds of fish every three months, Brother Francklyn Armand said. He underlined that the farmers in the North-East, like those of the Central Plateau, will be able to grow vegetables year-round, thanks to the lakes. These lakes also impact positively on tourism, he stated. Emphasizing that the most significant problem of Haiti is to feed everybody, he thinks that its solution lies in production linked to a true land reform. Brother Armand appeals to all sectors disposing of money to invest in national production. [1200 words]
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