Community General Assembly

JEN is now working on two issues in Leogane. One is water management committee who is in charge of operation and maintainance of water supply facilities, and other one is a charging system that keeps operation and maintenance by committee.

Water management committies had many trainings with JEN staff since February 2012. And from this June they are going to hold a community general assembly. In this assembly, members of water management committee have to present their water management structures, operations and role, in order to obtain consent from the community members.

This is the program of the community general assembly.

  (1) Beginning prayer
  (2) Welcome from the committee members and introduction of the general assembly
  (3) Introduction of committee members and hygiene promotion volunteer members
  (4) History of water management committee
  (5) Rules and terms of water management committee
  (6) Budget of water management committee (and usage fee to be set up)
  (7) Explanation about the membership of water supply facility management system
  (8) Q & A
  (9) Appreciation from the committee
(10) Ending prayer

(0)Gathering People
In Haiti these community gathering always starts late over one hour. People late are apparently not hurrying or do not care about it at all and comes to the meeting place　in easy mood (somehow dressed up　pretty good).　People who came on time also seems to be not irritated about delay instead chatting with other people while they were waiting in the middle of hot day.

(1)&(10)Beginning and Ending Players.
Many are combined with Voodoos, but 80 to 90 percent of people in Haiti are recognized as Christians. That is why we mostly have prayers on the beginning and end of the assembly. All people stand up and sing the player that they all know by heart.

(2) to (7) Explanation
Many people in Haiti are very good at speaking in front of people, or we can say they don't hesitate to speak, in comparison to the Japanese. They also likes to make people laugh with their talks and try to involve people during speaking.

(8)Q & A
Haitian people relatively do not hesitate to ask question or express their opinion.
Because management structure is one of the main agenda in General Assembly, We always hear questions “What if the committee members cheated the usage fee”. We think this as a reasonable question because still many are acting for their own interest that even teachers take money from their pupils (still most cases only when it is necessary) in this society.

Nonetheless, we saw many people applying for the membership of water management system and paying usage fee to the committee. This fact tells us that the community has strong demand of water, the community begin to understand the importance and necessity of management system, and moreover the community is gradually growing the sence of trust to the water management committee.