Cité Soleil, or ‘City of Sun’, is Haiti’s largest urban slum and home to more than 250,000 people. Located in Port au Prince the country’s capital, Cité Soleil is located at the base of the city, squeezed between the city and the shoreline. Being in the tropics, Haiti regularly sees heavy rains and catastrophic natural phenomenon, most recently Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. While major events like this make worldwide headlines, Cité Soleil faces daily chronic issues from regular, far less extreme weather. Insufficient infrastructure means that even regular tropical rains cause constant flooding as drainage channels become clogged with waste that flows down the hillside where many of the cities affluent reside.

This densely populated area is home to some of the highest poverty levels in Haiti. In Cité Soleil children grow up in poverty, surrounded by gang violence that controls the slums, with little hope to escape the cycle of poverty themselves. In this setting it’s only natural that public spaces and safe places for children to play are absent, while daily struggles take priority. The children of Cité Soleil are suffering the most of this challenging environment. There is hardly a place permitting them to behave as children and enjoy their childhood.

Malteser International and it’s national partners, together with the Order of Malta’s Global Fund For Forgotten People, have created one such space in the ‘Village des Repatriates’ zone of Cité Soleil. We are currently putting the finishing touches on a public space that not only provides a place for kids to be kids, but also it enables students to study at night, it creates a healthy space for youth to play sports in the evening, and it becomes a gathering point for the community at large.

At each stage of construction the playground was immediately put into use. The day swings and slides were installed, children arrived after school with smiling faces. As the sun went down on the day solar light were installed every corner was filled with students doing homework. And instead of wandering the streets in the dark, youth hit the basketball court the first day the concrete dried, with a crowd of onlookers cheering them on. While we wait for the official inauguration of the playground the project is already making an big impact in Cité Soleil and the lives of its children.

PROJECT GALLERY

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