Haiti: Inspiring Women, Marthe Merveille

"If each person plays their part, little by little, things can change."

The problem with Marthe Merveille is that I could write about her all day. Her story can't be contained any more than her spirit, vision and fathomless intelligence can. Marthe was with us every step of our journey in Haiti. She is present in each story you have read from Haiti, sitting off to one side with her warm smile and penetrating gaze.

Marthe has been working with women's groups voluntarily since she was 18 years old, more than twenty years ago. When she began her career as a school teacher, she became quickly frustrated by sexist beliefs that had already taken root in the children by the time they reached her classroom. "The boys thought they were more important than the girls," she told me. It is a cultural reality she experienced not just in her homeroom, but in her home growing up.

For her, addressing the imbalance at school was simply too late in the game, so she decided to focus on women and mothers to empower them and to encourage the values of equality and respect in their children from birth. "I want to educate women that are educating their children. Because the women are the ones that educate the children."

Marthe now works closely with PAIDEH, CAWST's local partner, training women's groups in hygiene, water treatment and sanitation. This might seem off her path of balancing Haiti's gender scales, but it is not. Running training workshops and supporting women's groups in their efforts simply gives Marthe a vehicle to work her magic. "If each person plays their part, little by little, things can change," she tells me. "Women have a capacity, but they ignore it. It's helping the women realize that they have power, that they can."

We meet one of Marthe's beneficiaries in Blue Hills, a periurban city near Cap- Haitien. When the woman introduces herself as Madame Mathurin Avril, Marthe gently but firmly says, "Mathurin is your husband's name. You have your own." The woman laughs and tells us her first name. "Ilfocia Avril," Marthe repeats. "It's a beautiful name. Don't throw it away."

Later, we meet a group of women from a community called Vertieres. They are hoping to start a biosand filter project in their neighbourhood. Marthe tells them to take pride in what they have already done and to take the initiative to raise funds for themselves. "If you each put five gourdes away, it will add up," Marthe says, softening her strong words with a smile of encouragement. "We have to create things for ourselves."

She told me once that she liked working in a grassroots capacity with the women of northern Haiti, a fact that I respected, although it didn't seem quite right. Day in and day out, I'd listened to her tell every woman she met to dream bigger, reach higher, expect more. "I hope you keep your dreams high and never go down low," I heard her admonish a gaggle of preening teenage girls.

I refer to Marthe as a one-woman gender equality movement and I am not joking in the slightest. Meet her and it won't take long to realize you are in the presence of greatness.

So, I knew she was destined for something larger, and just two days before we left Petite-Rivière, my intuition was confirmed.

After more than 20 years working in a grassroots capacity, Marthe was recently chosen for a post with the government overseeing the Ministère à la Condition Feminine et aux Droits des Femmes du Nord, the Ministry of the Rights and Status of Women of the North.