Thursday August 26 2010
I’d like to introduce you to an incredible person: Marthe Merveille, a close associate of PAIDEH, CAWST’s in-country partner organization, she shines with a unique, inspiring light.
Olivier raved about her before we arrived in Port-au-Prince, so by the time we got to Cap-Haitien, we were dying to meet the famous Marthe. As I shook her hand in greeting, she looked me square in the eye and said her name. Immediately I felt Marthe’s presence: a mix of kindness, strength and intelligence that would be reinforced every time I saw her in action.
Marthe has been working with women’s groups voluntarily since she was 18 years old, more than twenty years ago. She started her career as a school teacher, but she became frustrated with gender inequities that had already taken root in the children by the time they reached her classroom. Boys are treated with more respect than girls in Haiti, she told me. It’s a cultural reality she experienced not just in homeroom, but in her home growing up.
Several years ago, she decided that addressing the imbalance at school was simply too late in the game – the message that boys were more important and valuable than girls had already been solidified in the children’s minds. She decided to work with women – mothers – to empower them and to encourage equality and respect in their children from birth.
She now works closely with PAIDEH, training women’s groups in hygiene, water treatment and sanitation. This might seem off her path of balancing Haiti’s gender scales, but it’s not. Running training workshops and supporting women’s groups in their efforts simply gives Marthe a vehicle to work her magic.
We meet one of her beneficiaries in Blue Hills, a periurban cité near Cap-Haitien. When she introduces herself as Madame Mathurin Avril, Marthe gently but firmly asks her name again. “Mathurin is your husband’s name,” she says. “You have your own name.” The woman laughs and tells us her name is Ilfocia. “Ilfocia Avril,” Marthe repeats. “It’s a beautiful name. Don’t throw it away.”
Later, we meet a group of women from a community called Vertieres. They are hoping to start a biosand filter project in their neighbourhood and they appeal to Cate and I for help. Marthe admonishes them: “I hope you are not waiting for outside things, but are creating something from within. You are big women...powerful. You are strong in what you are doing.” She tells them to take pride in what they have already done and to take the initiative to raise funds for themselves. “If you each put five gourdes away, it will add up.”
“We have to create things for ourselves,” Marthe says, softening her strong words with a warm smile. What Marthe has created is a quiet revolution gradually transforming Haiti’s women and children one mother, one family, and one community at a time.
Melanie Jones
Read more of Melanie's Blogs in the Calgary Herald Water Dispatches
Courtesy of Calgary Herald
