Youth Empowerment Programs
SOIL’s youth empowerment projects encourage and support young leaders as they craft creative approaches to community development and waste recycling.
- Fatra Pa Egziste Contest
- Looking Through Their Eyes Photo Project
- Ti Moun Yo Se Lespwa Children’s Festival
A Fatra Pa Egziste contestant shows off the candle latern he made using tin cans.
The Fatra Pa Egziste (Garbage Doesn’t Exist) Contest encourages youth to creatively turn the discarded materials that litter their streets into useful or decorative resources. Contest entries have included sandals made from discarded water bags, cardboard, and cloth, jewelry made from chicken feathers and wire, and fully operational toys. The most creative entries are awarded marketing and sales support. Fatra Pa Egziste simultaneously promotes creative reuse of wastes and empowers individuals to engage in changing their reality.
In the Looking Through Their Eyes Photo Project, youth identify resources and problems in their community using digital cameras. Participants view the photos as a group and brainstorm ways that they can make change in the community. SOIL then provides the funding for the youth groups to organize a cultural event where they present their photos and ideas to their parents and adult community leaders.
Stanley Ferdinand of Borgne answers the question "What makes you sad?" with his photo "Boy With Rock". “People don’t have a place to go to the bathroom, so they go on the beach”. (The boy is holding a rock that will be his toilet paper).
A contestant at the Ti Moun Se Lespwa festival shows off the house he made out of cardboard and discarded materials.
