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About Haiti KONPAY

HISTORY                 STAFF                 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

 

KONPAY was founded in November 2004 in Jacmel, Haiti by Melinda Miles, former co-director of the Quixote Center, and Haitian-American Joe Duplan. Miles and Duplan decided to move to Haiti work there when many were fleeing during the unrest following February 29, 2004, because they felt they could be more effective ont he ground. With a grant from the Public Welfare Foundation, KONPAY began distributing emergency assistance to human rights and women's organizations, as well as establishing safe houses in Port-au-Prince.


KONPAY offered major financial support to the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV), a group working with rape victims in the capital’s notorious slum areas. KONPAY also began supporting a primary school for at-risk and extremely poor children in Port-au-Prince’s Martissant neighborhood. KONPAY’s sponsorship of the KOFAVIV project ended in 2006 when leaders of the project joined with Anne Sosin to create Haiti Rights Vision/VIDWA. KONPAY continued to support the Martissant school until the end of the 2005-2006 school year with periodic grants to pay teachers’ salaries.

KONPAY maintains a partnership with the Collective for the Artists of Jacmel, which promotes the artisanry of this world renowned city, the capitol of Carnival. We have established a cultural education tour of CFAJ artists in New England schools and represented CFAJ at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. We are in the process of developing a Fair Trade import system to secure a sustainable market for the Collective. CFAJ ran a program for thirty disadvantaged school children, teaching them embroidery, papier-mache, crochet, painting, drawing and other artisana. Major exhibitions during the year were Carnival in February and the May 1st festivities.

KONPAY has focused the majority of its time and resources on coalition-building and direct assistance projects for the environment. In September 2005, KONPAY brought together forty grassroots and organizational leaders to determine an agenda for the environment. After participating in Alternative Gifts International's February 2006 gathering of international agencies working to reforest Haiti, KONPAY began an important partnership with AGI. In July 2007, KONPAY coordinated and AGI hosted the National Environment Initiative, a landmark event which gathered grassroots leaders, national non-governmental organizations and international agencies to share information and build relationships in Jacmel. As a result of the meeting, the Haitian National Coalition for the Environment was launched with KONPAY as coordinator. Please learn more about the Coalition by visiting www.haitienvironment.org.