The Environment & Education!

Taking Education into the Environment, by Andrew Craycraft

On a recent trip to his home country of Haiti, Louis Elneus, president and founder of the non-profit Haiti Lumiere de Demain, Inc. (HLD), had a thought. As he observed the ruin that much of the country lay in after the heavy rains and mudslides ripped through the cities and countryside, Mr. Elneus decided that his organization needed to do more.

Upon returning to the states, the wheels began to turn and the plan was set in motion. For five and a half years, Haiti Lumiere de Demain, Inc. has been responsible for adding the backbone to the public Haitian education system on his native island of La Gonave, providing thousands of Haitian children with textbooks, equipping dozens of teachers with adequate training, and working with community leaders and local elected officials to outline an educational future for Haiti's youth. While Mr. Elneus chose this focus under-standing that education is the first step in lifting a nation up, he has now come to understand that there is something more that needs to happen in order to get his home back on track.

That is when he approached friend and HLD supporter Andrew Craycraft. Mr. Craycraft had just graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he was doing his part in spreading the word about HLD and mobilizing people behind its cause. The two met and discussed the current situation and came up with the perfect link that would tie HLD to the cause while complimenting its existing program and mission in furthering Haiti's progress.

Mr. Elneus and Mr. Craycraft have founded the Environmental Education Program (E.E.P.). In order to compliment the increasingly successful distribution of textbooks to Haitian children, the E.E.P. now implements the planting of trees. Planting trees provides an important avenue through which Haitian children will have a better understanding of the responsibility that they share for their own environment. Their mission is to plant 20,000 trees, while providing each child the textbooks they need in the classroom.

(Haiti’s mountainous geography leaves it at risk for severe mudslides)

Working alongside community organizers, local elected officials, and school officials, the E.E.P. will begin its restoration plan with the construction of parks when the rainy season returns this spring. The idea behind these public parks and the planting of trees within them is to create areas of value that extend beyond their primary purpose of natural barriers from rain. These parks will serve as communal areas built, maintained, and respected by the communities in which they exist. The threat of trees being cut down in these parks is almost eliminated due to the effect of social responsibility that the parks create within the community.

Growing up in Haiti, Mr. Elneus is all too familiar with the reliability every year with which the Caribbean is pelted by a long and trying rain season. Consequently, every year Haiti suffers worse than any other country in the surrounding area. Due to an extreme over-exhaustion of the island's resources, deforestation has all but cleared the large hills and mountainsides of Haiti. With the coming of these heavy rain seasons in spring and early summer, the island now faces a huge threat. Lacking the natural barrier that natural forests provided for them, communities in Haiti are now the target for mudslides and floods, which have time and again destroyed communities, homes, and worst of all, taken lives.

(Sediment from mudslides runs off the Haitian coast into the ocean killing marine life and disrupting the natural environment)
Roughly 60 percent of Haiti's land lies on a 20 percent or more level-gradient. This mountainous terrain was at one time covered with thick forest and vegetation, but as time has passed and Haiti's economic problems continue to multiply, these natural resources have conversely diminished. Currently deforestation, mainly by subsistence farming, has left only 2 percent of the original tree cover.

Progress has already been made in recent trips by Mr. Elneus in garnering local support for the new program. As with all of its work, though, HLD relies heavily upon the generosity of its supporters. The true momentum for the project will ultimately have to come from the private support of our friends at HLD. With this help we can add the extra crutch for a struggling country of beautiful and optimistic people to get back on its feet.

If you would like to help, please contact Mr. Louis Elneus at (203) 368-4873 or Mr. Craycraft at (203) 434-6012. Or you may visit us and find out more about HLD and the EEP at www.haitilumiere.org.

Andrew Craycraft is currently on leave as Director of HLD’s Environmental Education Program to pursue a career in law at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Lansing Michigan. Even though Andy is on leave, and despite a heavy course load as a first year law school student, he remains active in the work of HLD. Because of his dedication, he was able to secure an autographed basketball from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina’s head Basketball coach, Roy Williams. The basketball was auctioned off at HLD’s annual dinner this past June and raised $200.