Mission
The Rural Haiti Project is a 501(c) 3 youth leadership and community development organization that seeks to strengthen rural communities of Haiti by motivating, empowering and supporting young people in rural areas to become leaders and builders of their communities. The organization explores creative ways to engage children and youth, challenge them and encourage them to reach new heights. The organization engages children at an early age to create and understand their own visions, to identify the positive aspects of their communities as well as recognize the problems that their communities face. The Rural Haiti Project seeks to collectively create innovative approaches and solutions to solve problems and help children and youth become ambassadors for change.

"IDEA" Approach to Community Development

Inspiration: conduct workshops with children to empower and promote creative thinking.

Development: identify, research, initiate and fund community development projects that complement programs led by existing institutions.

Education: raise awareness and assist children and parents gain access to education.

Action: focus on careful execution and use of systems approach to action by examining interactions between different parts of a problem in relation to the whole and implementing strategies to tackle these parts.

Where We Started
The Rural Haiti Project started in 2006 with a summer workshopentitled “Imagine your Environment” in Sibert, Plaine du Cul de Sac, Haiti. For the summer of 2007, we introduced our second workshop entitled “Let’s Protect our Environment”. Local artisans, horticulturist, teachers and specialist on reforestation were invited to share their expertise with the kids.