By Onz Chéry
Copyright haitiantimes
CAP-HAÏTIEN — Just minutes from the city’s airport, piles of garbage stretch along the roads, shaping the first impression of Cap‑Haïtien for visitors. Tired of waiting for change, dozens of young residents spent a recent weekend clearing the streets themselves — determined to give their city, and its visitors, a cleaner start to the holiday season. The effort, dubbed Okap Pwòp (Clean Cap-Haïtien), was led by the social media blog T‑Son Promo and the film crew Koray Production.
From Sept. 22 to 24, about 100 people aged 12 to 30 took part in the three-day cleanup in Aviation, a neighborhood near the airport.
“Port-au-Prince isn’t doing fine, so people are coming to Okap and saying it’s dirty,” said Wilguentz Jean, logistics manager for Okap Pwòp. “As young bloggers, we can’t go on social media and lie. So we decided to clean the streets ourselves to show people that Okap isn’t what they think.”
The Cap-Haïtien town hall, under new mayor Angie Bell, donated 10 wheelbarrows, 10 shovels, 10 rakes and two dozen brooms to support the initiative. Bell, appointed in August after her predecessor was removed for failing to tackle the trash problem, has pursued additional collaborations with the private sector. Among them is Samdi Sitwayen (Citizen Saturday), where local business leaders and town hall officials discuss ways to protect the environment.
Still, progress remains slow. While parts of Aviation are cleaner, large stretches remain littered, and trash continues to pile up near the ocean.
“We started and we won’t stop cleaning the city,” said Benjamin Leïto, managing director of Promo Okap Bèl Imaj and one of the volunteers. “Everyone in the city has to get together to do this because the city needs a major cleanup.”
Volunteers worked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., using shovels to gather trash and wheelbarrows to transport it to collection sites. Municipal sanitation workers are expected to remove the piles with heavy equipment.
T-Son Promo and Koray Production say this is only the beginning.
“We will keep working until there’s a solution,” Jean said. “Our goal is to spend a clean Christmas in Cap-Haïtien.”
Below are images of the first edition of Okap Pwòp.
