MORE ABOUT HAITI
Cyber Cafe And Phone Center
St. Mary took a trip in May
2004 to Pendus. We had never gone at that time of the year before and a group
with just seven people was our smallest group thus far to visit Pendus.
Lafayette entrepreneur Jerry Brand had collected a substantial sum of money from
many of his friends and colleagues. We went thinking we would invest in some
type of economic development project for the area. We had three in mind when
we departed -- 1) build an ice factory (not only would it create jobs but the
closest ice factory to Gros Morne and Pendus is in Gonaives or 1-2 hours away by
car!); 2) build a concrete block factory (again it would create jobs and its
proximity to Pendus could help reduce construction costs in the area); and 3)
build a trade school.
After nearly a week of investigating each of these three possibilities, Jerry
decided that the best use of the money at this time was to create a cyber cafe
at the high school in Gros Morne and a Phone Center. While there was one small
cyber cafe in Gros Morne already, this one would be more accessible to the
students at Jean XXIII as well as be available to the entire community as well.
The cyber cafe was a way to link the youth with the rest of the world and with
many learning opportunities.
It too could have some economic impact. First many folks relied on family
living abroad for financial support from time to time. Contacting them from
Pendus or Gros Morne by regular mail was an awfully slow, cumbersome process
(often taking several weeks for a letter to go one way -- if it got there at
all). This way contact could be had immediately between family and friends
wherever they happened to live throughout the world. It has often been said
that the "department" of Haiti with the biggest impact on GNP is the
"department" of all those not living in Haiti. A second avenue for economic
development would come from the actual use of the computers in the cyber cafe.
As is true in America, the youth are the first to embrace the new technology.
Many have created "jobs" for themselves by making flyers, wedding announcements
etc to sell to others.
The Phone Center had a similar function in connecting Gros Morne and surrounding
areas with the rest of Haiti and the world. The center was actually run through
an American company, meaning the calls could be cheaper to reach American and
Canada than to call others places in Haiti. Since cell phones were not yet
available in Haiti, it was often difficult even to reach others in neighboring
towns and cities. To show how economic this endeavor was, a five minute call
from Gros Morne to the USA initially cost only 5 Haitian dollars (or about 70
cents in US dollars at the then going exchange rate.)
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