REMUSOV, Vodrey (Vaudreuil)

Vodrey is an innovative, dynamic organic farming community in the rural part of Cite Soleil, which has had incredible success with a community micro-credit system called mutuelle de solidarite. 

Vodrey is a community in the northern, rural part of Cite Soleil. It is an agricultural community of around 1000 people, located next to the Riviere Grise. In the 1980s, the community was a sugarcane plantation for the company HASCO, but in 1991, HASCO left the country due to political instability. In the years afterwards, farmers began settling in the area and transforming the plantation into rich gardens that produced a variety of produce, from plantains to vegetables to coconuts. Early on, the farmers of Vodrey decided to commit themselves to organic agriculture, and with the help of an agronomist working for the Ministry of Agriculture and an organisation called FLM (World Lutheran Federation), they were able to get training on organic farming and subequently formed an organic farmer's cooperative. 

Access to credit is difficult for all Haitian farmers, and so the residents of Vodrey managed to get training on an innovative but tradtional form of community micro-credit called mutuelle de solidarite. Starting with 1 mutuelle in 2008, the community now has 14, and everyone in the community is touched either directly or indirectly by the mutuelle system. They were so successful, they decided to form a cooperative to pool their resources for the good of the community, and founded REMUSOV (Regrouping of the Mutuelle de Solidarite of Vodrey). With the community credit provided by REMUSOV paired with the agricultural expertise of the farmer's cooperative, Vodrey has been able to establish a community greenhouse, a community nursery, an experimental drip irrigation system, worm composting, compost toilets, a bamboo nursery and a riverbank preservation initiative, and bring electricity to the commmunity. The community is also organized in mobilizing for environmental justice. 

Vodrey is always willing to share its knowledge on the mutuelle system and all it knows about organic agriculture and environmental justice.