OFGDL, Lavoute

Lavoute is home to an active and long-standing federation of over 38 community organizations called OFGDL, which touches everything from clean streets to community theater to helping the community recover its coffee production culture.

Lavoute an active community that is home to over 38 local organisations which have have been working together in a federation called OFGDL since 1997. A huge cross-section of the community participates in this federation, from youth to the elderly to Diaspora from the community. 

OFGDL started by working on community cleanliness, having volunteers clean the streets and pick up plastic that was giving farmers problems. They promote cultural activities as well, engaging the community in theater and dance.  They advocated for a secondary school in the early 2000s, and when the government agreed to build the school but refused to pay for any professors, it was the federation that mobilised volunteers from the community to teach at the school. They have recently been working with an NGO called FAES and ACTED to help to resolve the water crisis in the community by installing several large community cisterns and 37 household cisterns. OFGDL also works in the domain of agriculture, giving trainings to try to revitalize coffee production, which had been important to the community but had begun to disappear.