Roots of Development

In 2022, Roots of Development continued supporting our haitian partner, rasin devlopman. With Roots' help, rasin has strengthened itself internally by adopting new systems and bringing on new staff, allowing it to expand its work by reaching new areas of la gonave and directing its efforts toward new populations. Due to the ongoing crisis in haiti, rasin was only able to complete 78% of its 2022 workplan-however, it did end the year with a balanced budget, for the third year in a row. In addition, rasin facilitated a 91% increase in the number of projects undertaken across the island, to 21 in total, and added 2 new programs, an island-wide community forum and a youth-oriented civic engagement program. With the addition of dedicated communications staff, rasin's social media reached 122,000 people online.

In 2022, Roots and rasin also continued making progress on our most significant and ambitious project to date, the construction of the la gonave community leadership & Development center. The center will be an office and training space for rasin devlopman's operations, but beyond that, it will be a hub for community-led Development around the world, where like-minded organizations can come together to share best practices and learn from one another. After securing the land for the center in 2021, Roots and rasin selected a haitian architect for the center and commissioned the designs for the building. Roots also began the fundraising efforts to raise the money to drill a water source for the center.

With our financial support, rasin provided 77 hours of capacity strengthening workshops to 45 community leaders through their volonte pou chanjman program, the recipients of which went on to create and implement 13 projects throughout the island, with rasin's support. After formally completing the island's first communal Development plan in 2021, rasin hosted an island-wide forum and three-day workshop for 70 leaders to discuss the plan and implementation strategies. With Roots' support, rasin also offered more than 30 hours of training to women leaders on la gonave, reaching more than 150 women, and taught 48 young women to drive motorcycles through the fanm k ap kondwi program. 21 community impact and infrastructure projects were implemented across the island, including installing solar powered streetlamps, helping families plant vegetable gardens, constructing toilet facilities, constructing a wharf, planting mangrove trees, and more.