OFARR, Ravine des Roches

Ravine des Roches is home to a women's group which has mobilised to help each other with commercial activities, and recently has begun a community school to meet a gap they saw in their children's access to education.

Ravine des Roches is in the commune of Limbe and is home to about 16,000 people. In 2005, a group of 74 women decided to form an organisation called OFARR (Organisation of Women in Action of Ravine des Roches), because they felt it was time to mobilise for their own priorities. Their primary activity is commercial: every meeting, each member gives 5 gourdes, and that money is saved up and lent to women to carry out small businesses, and when that money is paid back it is lent to another. They also have a common enterprise (selling rice, oil, and ice) in the town center to generate more funds to help other women. 

They have also undertaken operating a community school for the last 2 years. They realized that many children in the community didn't have access to school, and so they mobilized the community by passing an envelope to collect money and got volunteers to construct a basic structure. There are now 110 children in the school (ages 3-12), and the community gives contributions to pay the teachers what they can, but only 1 gourd is expected from the parents as a fee.  The women's group also does theater with the children and uses those community events to raise money to buy other necessities like books, chalk,

and water.