Faces of Recovery: We won’t be discouraged

Souveraine Corney belongs to a cooperative of 63 women farmers in the town of Jérémie win South-West Haiti, an area impacted by the earthquake. The cooperative is supported by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“We are growing cabbages here and alongside we will plant tomatoes and hot peppers. After the earthquake, we didn’t work the land. The houses of some members were destroyed, and we stopped working for a short while, but since the rains have come we are planting again with the support of FAO.

We work together and harvest together and then we divide the produce and sell individually. The bridge into Jérémie was made unsafe by the earthquake so trucks cannot pass and bring products from other areas, however, we are able to sell our vegetables easily as we load them up onto our heads and walk across the bridge and sell to our own customers. There are more people in Jérémie who want to buy our produce.

We don’t have to pay for transport which is very expensive. So, even if the cost of living is going up, by selling locally, we can make a living. And any extra money we make we put into our personal savings bank accounts. Climate change, earthquakes and cyclones make cultivation harder, but we won’t be discouraged.”