News — 25 January, 2012

HOT at Haiti Communitere

Since returning to Haiti in preparation of launching the Saint Marc mapping program with COSMHA, HOT has been staying at the Haiti Communitere (HC) Resourse Center. HC offers an open space, where organizations of many type are able to come to launch project within Haiti. They are very valuable to organizations such as HOT because they allow us to arrive and use this incredibly flexible support environment to get things started or in country.

Since returning to Haiti in preparation of launching the Saint Marc mapping program with COSMHA, HOT has been staying at the Haiti Communitere (HC) Resourse Center. HC offers an open space, where organizations of many type are able to come to launch project within Haiti. They are very valuable to organizations such as HOT because they allow us to arrive and use this incredibly flexible support environment to get things started or in country.

One of the very cool things that HC also does is supply this area as an open space for the local organizations and groups in Haiti as well. Our Haitian mapping partners in COSMHA have been partnered with HC for many things over the past year. Using the space and resources made available by HC to all those working toward a true international community, COSMHA has been able to host organization meetings here. They have also been able to organize many trainings for people, local and international, interested in OSM. As well, HC has served as a place to store equipment and an invaluable source for networking.

By managing a flexible base that allows access to everything from a construction workshop to access to information technologies, HC fills an important role in building a truly open community structure that helps connect NGOs and local community groups. It can not be stress enough how the existence of such an openspace that can fulfill immediate needs in a low resource environment can make the difference between success and failure. 

In the context of the Saint Marc project, HC allowed HOT and COSMHA to get organized in various ways. The big thing of Saturday morning was the COSMHA General Assembly to which Brian and I participated. A couple of hours focused on most of the issues any OSM chapter is wrestling with and to the last round of group discussions and decisions about the Saint Marc project which can make a difference for the group in Haiti. Articulation between volunteership and paid projects, group governance, ways forward past existing bottlenecks, procedures and mechanisms for improving group communication, strategy, project design, and hiring were at the centre of lively discussions. The rest of the weekend went into gathering hardware from OSM friendly projects that delays in hardware procurement experienced by our partner OTI/HIR made necessary. Monday was spent meeting with the mappers of the future team, training, and preparing for the interviewing of 60 youths of Saint Marc willing to be part of this mapping experience.

If you would like more information on Haiti Communitere please visit their website, haiti.communitere.org. You can volunteer, become a partner organization, or donate to become involved with HC.

-Nicolas and Brian