The SACHA project is now at the halfway point. Conducted in Port-au-Prince since 2018 by CEMEA-Haiti in partnership with the ESN and Solidarité Laïque Haïti, and with the support of Wallonie-Bruxelles Internationale (WBI), the deployment of its activities has been faced with disruptions caused by the health context and the resurgence of tensions in Haiti.
However, the second phase is ongoing and continues to mobilise national and international actors, particularly for developing the skills of the project beneficiaries.
In this 2nd phase, the autonomy of the members of the Health Education, Citizenship and Social Protection Committees (CESCPS) of the 6 schools and representatives of the 4 unions affiliated to Education International in dealing with the issues at the heart of the SACHA project is continuing to take shape.
Indeed, after the diagnosis of the priority issues in terms of health at school, the beneficiaries initiated various events and workshops for pupils and education staff, e.g.: school infrastructure sanitation days, conference-discussion on the impact of sanitation on the mental health of pupils and teachers, or awareness-raising workshops against the spread of Covid and the fight against fake news with the participation of health professionals.
In order to support their empowerment but also to guarantee the quality and sustainability of their awareness raising activities, training sessions were planned around 4 main themes:
- Health at school and illness prevention for young people
- Occupational health and wellbeing for education workers
- Social protection and trade union rights for education workers
- Project management, collective intelligence animation and partnership research
The ESN thus planned to carry out a mission to Port-au-Prince over the course of 2020, accompanied by several experts. But the local context coupled with the pandemic made it impossible to travel there.
In order to facilitate this training activity despite the situation, the project partners decided to innovate by working on the creation of training capsules.
To create these tools, the ESN called on the contributions of its members and their collaborators in Haiti and internationally.
Thus, thanks to the collaboration with the Ecole Supérieure Nationale de Sécurité Sociale (EN3S – member of the ESN), representatives of the Haitian Ministry of Economy and Finance were able to participate in the production of the capsules in Haiti. Members of the UNNOEH and CNEH unions as well as Solidarité Laïque Haïti also intervened to address some of the issues. These videos were filmed in Creole in order to facilitate the internalisation of knowledge by the target population.
At the international level, the ESN coordinated two round tables in French on the Teams videoconference platform. The association Essentiel and Solidarité Laïque (members of the ESN) took part in the exchanges, as well as SWAA-Burundi, AJDSR and Dr Sindy Riche, who were put in touch with the ESN through its members/partners.
In total, 10 videos were created and made available to SACHA beneficiaries. They participated in a day of training led by CEMEA-Haiti on 14 April 2021 in the premises of Solidarité Laïque Haïti in Port-au-Prince. About twenty people (representatives of the 6 CESCPS and representatives of the UNNOEH trade union) were able to attend.
The programme of this meeting included: advice on how to use the capsules, delivery of the capsules to the beneficiaries on USB drives, debates on the themes presented and interventions by CEMEA-Haiti and Solidarité Laïque Haïti.
Find all the SACHA project videos on the ESN YouTube page.
