"Ayisyen swiv kouran."
Haitians follow the flow.
-Haitian proverb
Cité Soleil (Kreyole: Site Solèy; English: Sun City) is a commune located in the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement of Haiti.
Cité-Soleil is the eighth most populous city in Haiti. With over a quarter million residents, it is also the fifth most populous city in both the Western Department and the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement. Often referred to as the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, the region has nearly 2 million people and is the largest in Haiti. Cité-Soleil has often been referred to as a global third-world capital.
Ville de Cité Soleil
Comfortable living space, safety, security and luxury are some of the things that are uncommon among people living in Cité Soleil, an extremely low profile town. As a matter of fact, it is considered one of the poorest and most dangerous towns in the world.
About[]
Originally built to house manual laborers, Cité-Soleil is one of the youngest cities in Haiti. Its location at the mouth of several rivers (where they flow into Port-au-Prince Bay), has made the city's waterfront an integral part of its geography. In addition, Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport was the first municipal commercial airport in Haiti, and today is its busiest.
Several leading companies have had their headquarters in Cité-Soleil, including Hasco. A number of important education institutions are also in the city.
Cité-Soleil is divided into two political wards, Varreux 1 and Varreux 2, and contains neighborhoods ranging in character from bustling urban districts to overcrowded slums. The city's Cité-Simone is the oldest housing project in Haiti and was originally home to the employees of the nation's largest sugar company, Hasco.
History[]
At its founding, Cité-Soleil was a suburban district of the municipality of Port au Prince. In 1983, it was transferred to the municipality of Delmas. In April of 2002, a presidential decree from Jean Bertrand Aristide made Cité-Soleil its own municipality. The first appointed mayor was Fritz Joseph, and in December 2006, Cite Soleil elected its first mayor, Wilson Louis. After a demand from the Collective of Leaders of Cite Soleil (CONOCS), the young municipality was allowed to send a representative to the lower chamber of Parliament. This first representative was Salibar Jean.
Cité Soleil is indeed a young place. Fifty years ago, if you were to visit the land that is now known as the most dangerous place in the Caribbean, you would have found acres of sugar cane fields going almost up to the ocean’s edge. There would have been railroad tracks that were used to transport the sugarcane down to a processing factory, which was next to the wharfs where ships docked, waiting to take the sugar to overseas markets. The only residences were a group of state-built houses for government employees, and this settlement was known as Cité Simone, named after Simone Duvalier, the wife of the president-for-life, François Duvalier.
Over the course of the fifty years that followed, rural Haiti went through a series of economic crises. Political instability, economic policies, and environmental degradation forced hundreds of thousands of rural Haitian families into a mass exodus from the countryside. Most of those families went to Port-au-Prince to search for work, and of those families, many ended up settling in Cité Soleil, where access to cheap housing and factory jobs was easiest. Several new housing projects failed to keep up with the ever-increasing population, and people began to build informal housing and shacks on whatever land they could, mostly in floodable plains by the sea. By the early 2000s, Cite Soleil had anywhere from 300,000 to half a million residents crammed into a strip of land that was less than 21 square kilometers (8 square miles). It had become the most densely-populated place in Haiti.
Cité Soleil
Gang life
But life was challenging for the hundreds of thousands of people trying to make a living by the sea. Many of the factories in and around Cite Soleil closed in the early 1990s due to political instability, and tens of thousands of young people found themselves without work. Economic frustrations and a sense of political marginalization led young men across Cite Soleil to take up arms. (They were called chime, bandi, mafia) but outsiders called them ‘gangs’ – and they had a complex role in the community. The state had been absent from Cite Soleil for decades, and so the gangs filled this void by providing protection, a justice system, and provide financial capital for community projects. But they also abuse their power: endangering their neighborhoods through wars with other gangs, diverting resources, manipulating their communities for political gain, and killing with impunity. Communities were afraid of their local gang leaders but also in many ways dependent on them, and they trusted their gangs more than the police or government.
The power of the gangs grew through the years, until by 2004, the gangs were in full control of the territory of Cite Soleil. In 2006, the Haitian government decided to try to take back control of Cite Soleil with the help of the United Nations peacekeeping mission MINUSTAH. From 2004-2006, Cite Soleil was a war zone, barricaded off from the rest of the capital, with tanks in the streets and helicopters overhead. Many innocent civilians died during this period. By 2007, the main gang leaders of the time were either killed, in prison or in exile, and the state regained some control. However, the underlying socio-economic and political conditions that created the gangs to begin with were not solved, and so the gangs themselves continued to exist. In addition, the violence of the 2004-2006 period left Cite Soleil with a serious stigma, where most of Haiti thought of Soleyans as gangsters and criminals. This further isolated Cite Soleil from the rest of the country, and made it challenging for young Soleyans to find work in or out of Cite Soleil. Cite Soleil remains to this day the most marginalized area in the country.
Geography[]
Cité-Soleil is located in northwestern Port-au-Prince County on the northeastern shores of Port-au-Prince Bay.
According to the census bureau, the city had a total area of 21.81 square kilometers (8.42 square miles), 100% urban. It has the second-smallest land area among the 145 communes in Haiti, with only La Pointe being smaller in size. It is bordered on the north by the city of Croix-des-Bouquets, on the east by the commune of Tabarre, on the southeast by the commune of Delmas, and on the south by the city of Port-au-Prince. Cité Soleil is divided into two communal sections. Although the two municipal secons Varreux 1 and 2 are considered as urban areas, a large part of the north of the commune is less densely populated and devoted to agricultural producton and animal husbandry. The city's altitude is at 0 (sea level). Cité-Soleil is essentially a large basin sloping towards the Port-au-Prince Bay with land dotted by meandering streams. Historically, Cité-Soleil has been slated for industrial and agricultural purposes. In the mid 20th century, public housing was erected to house the sugar factory workers.
Until the mid 20th century, the land on Cité-Soleil was reluctant to develop, as the plains were essentially wilderness, with a few dumps, warehouses, and cemeteries on their edges. During the 20th century, the government was able to reclaim acres of the land for the construction of Cité-Simone, as well as the growth of the adjacent lands.
Cité-Soleil is surrounded by residential suburbs to the north, the international airport to the east, dense urban areas to the south, and Port-au-Prince Bay to the west.
When Cité-Soleil was founded in 1950, most of the early building was around the mouth of the river, in the vicinity of Cité-Simone. The overall grade of the city's built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise.
The Avenue de Soleil is the central business district, but Cité-Soleil is also a city of neighborhoods. Avenue de la Americans runs adjacent to a large portion of the waterfront and parallel to Route Nationale 1. Some of the developments along these parts include Boston, La Saline, and Bois Neuf, Brooklyn and Ti Haiti.
Neighborhoods[]
Cité Soleil's two communal sections are further divided into 27 localities and several habitations.
1re Section des Varreux
2re Section des Varreux
Demographics[]
| Year | Population | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | 80,000+ | |
| 1990 | 500,000 | + ~525% |
| 2009 | 241,055 | -52% |
| 2012 | 252,960 | +5% |
| 2015 | 265,072 | +5% |
Young children in Cite-Soleil
Cité Soleil has a very young population. About 60% of the population is under the age of 25. The city had a population of 265,072 as of the 2015 Census, retaining its position as the third most populous city in the department and making it the nation's 6th-most populous municipality. After reaching a peak of 500,000 residents counted in the 1990 Census, the city's population saw a decline of nearly 40% as residents moved to surrounding suburbs.
What is arguably now the Western Hemisphere’s biggest [underdeveloped area], the area was originally developed to house workers of Haiti’s industrial boom, but quickly grew in size as people from across the country flocked here looking for work.
The United States led a boycott of Haitian manufactured products after the coup d’etat in 1991 which sent then President Jean Bertrand Aristide into exile. This boycott effectively led to the complete closure of Cité Soleil’s manufacturing sector – pushing the entire region into unemployment and, subsequently, extreme poverty. The city gained over 200,000 residents between 1960 and 1990. Poverty remains a consistent problem in Cité-Soleil, despite charity efforts in recent years. As of 2010, much of the city's population was underpaid.
Climate[]
Cité Soleil has a tropical savana climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, typified by a good deal of rain in the summer and very little rain in the winter.
This climate is considered to be Aw, with an average annual temperature of 28.4 °C (83°F). July is the hottest month of the year; January is the coldest, with temperatures averaging 24.8 °C (77°F). In essence, a tropical savanna climate tends to either see less rainfall than a tropical monsoon climate or have a more pronounced dry season.
Precipitation is the lowest in January, with an average of 28 mm (1 inch). Most of the precipitation here falls in May, averaging 194 mm (8 inches). In Cité Soleil, the average annual temperature is 26.7 °C (80°F). The average annual rainfall is 1144 mm (45 inches). Between the driest and wettest months, the difference in precipitation is 166 mm (6.5 inches). Throughout the year, temperatures vary by 3.6 °C (38°F).
Environment[]
Wharf Road Runs through Neighborhood 22 in Cite de Soleil
Cité Soleil indulges in large doses of nearly every environmental threat imaginable. It is located at the western end of the principal runway of the National Airport and consequently withstands regular noise pollution. Its open areas are barren of vegetation and combine with tremendous accumulations of solid waste to generate significant dust on a daily basis. The drainage canals are largely fed from outside the city and can be assumed to carry pollutants from the manufacturing zones, principal roadways, petroleum storage facilities, and electrical generation plants which abut the eastern and southern borders of the muncipality. Groundwater can be found from 1 to 5 feet below ground and is fed by the surrounding ocean and by infiltration of the community's waste and polluted drains. The general lack of sanitary facilities combines with ever-present mounds of solid waste to generate a large and health-threatening population of flies and other pests. The entire area is then placed under enormous environmental pressure because the residents are directly exposed in their homes on a regular basis to the overflowing and flooding of the intensely polluted and regularly obstructed drainage canals.
Economy[]
The local economy is supported by industry, agriculture, and commerce.
The industrial sector includes the electricity production company (EPOWER), the La Couronne brewery (producer of Coca-Cola in Haiti), and the SEJOURNE brewery.
Commercial activities include the company MSC+ (construction materials), the company RIKA (Food), the company Maison d’Adesky (Food, Import-Export), the company Varreux (sale of cement and steel), and Marché Titony (food).
The agricultural sector consists of small-scale subsistence farming and market gardening, cultivation of bananas and mango, and a group of fishermen in association.
Infrastructure[]
Cite Soleil has two electricity companies (Sogener and EPower), two cement factories (CINA and Varreux), two soda manufacturing plants (Sejourné and La Corounne), 30 wells that that provide water to the majority of the capital, and a long waterfront, complete with 4 ports.
Education
A back-to-school campaign in 2006 has brought new hope to the children of Cité Soleil, who live in areas that have long been regarded as some of most violent neighborhoods in the whole Western Hemisphere.
For years, powerful gangs have seized control over the community, forcibly recruiting children, and keeping away outsiders, including most humanitarian workers. Violence and increased poverty have forced many schools to shut down, leaving thousands of children without an education.
But following the election of René Préval as the new President in February, a window of opportunity opened up. The gangs declared a unilateral truce, and the area finally became accessible.
Lycée Nationale de Cité Soleil
Together with the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and the local authorities, UNICEF identified requirements to bring every child back to classrooms in Cité Soleil. Water and sanitation facilities were being improved in 40 schools, while essential supplies were distributed to all students and their teachers in all 201 schools.
Community daycares
A large part of the households in Cité Soleil are single-parent households. These female-led households must both work outside and provide for the family needs. These child care centers are designed as a reliable answer, allowing them to drop their underaged children in peace. These centers will also provide a first outlet for young girls who will be able to receive basic training to take care of of young children.
Health
Cité-Soleil is home to four healthcare centers. Healthcare facilities in the neighborhoods are basic and provided through the local clinics listed below. Many if not most residents still rely heavily on traditional curers, including masseuses, midwives, leaf doctors, and shaman. Beginning in June 2004, the ICRC began to train and support Haitian National Red Cross Society first-aiders in Cité-Soleil. Their job was to evacuate victims of violent clashes and take them to the nearest medical facility, Hôpital Sainte-Catherine Labourée (with 110 beds), which, in the 1990s, was operating at peak efficiency. Médecins sans Frontières runs the pediatric, medicine and maternity ward with a per month average of 450 patients hospitalized, 1,500 consultations and 200 deliveries.
Hôpital Sainte-Catherine Labourée, Cité Soleil, Haiti
Rosalie Mendu Medical and Nutrition Center was also listed in the commune and, thanks to the Arab Cooperation Project during the 1970s, Dr. Carlos Boulos started to give free health care. The Haitiano-Arab Center was combined with Plan International – an NGO that works in education and construction – to become the Centre Haitiano-Arabe Plan International (CHAPI). MSF re-opened Choscal Hospital and the Chapi Health Center in the heart of Cité Soleil in August 2005, and staff performed nearly 12,000 medical consultations and 800 emergency interventions in the first three months.
Other services
In case of fire, citizens of the area must rely on the Champs de Mar fire station, in neighboring Port-au-Prince.
Industries in the area have their own security and emergency services. The industrial park has police, customs, and other emergency services contained within its fences.
A residence in Cite-Soleil
Organizations
The commune is supported by several NGOs. 10 of the most significant are
1. RCV: Réduction de la Violence Communautaire, MINUSTAH (Community Violence Reduction)
2. CNDDR: Commission nationale de désarmement et de réinsertion (National Disarmament and Reintegration Commission)
3. OIM : Organisation Internationale pour les Migrations
4. Konbit pou Lape (MINUSTAH)
5. MSF: Médecin sans frontière
6. MDM: Médecin du monde
7. USAID
8. La Croix Rouge Haïtienne
9. ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross
10. PAM: Programme Alimentaire Mondial
References[]
Dropping guns for books [1]
"An in-depth history of Cite Soleil" - Jean Enock Joseph. Konbit Soley Lev [2]
"History Brief: Site Soley (Cite Soleil)" - Schwartz Research Group. [3]
"Description de la commune de Cité-Soleil" - Jeune Haiti [4]
"1,480 Haitian Children Get Classrooms Back" - Myamoto [5]
Michael Vedrine
