Neighborhood cleanups, St Raphael

Every week, the residents of the town of St Raphael mobilise themselves for a voluntary street-cleaning campaign, where everyone, including the mayor, participates

The town of St Raphael is a growing area: it has one of Haiti's largest public markets, it will soon have access to an electrical grid, and there is a new road improvement program that not only has paved the downtown with cobblestones but will connect St Raphael with Hinche via a paved highway.

But St Raphael's residents are not just benefiting from improvements to the neighborhood, they are contributing in every way they can, big or small. One of the initiatives the mayor and local residents have created is a weekly neighborhood beautification day, where residents (including the mayor himself) take their brooms out of their houses and spend the day cleaning up the streets.