Pastor Edmund Sainval
Pignon, Haiti

Day by day, Pastor Edmund Sainval and his Baptist church congregation awaken to a brighter world. “Since electricity arrived in 2005,” says Edmund, who, along with his wife, runs a home-based primary school and kindergarten in the Haitian village of Pignon, “everything is getting better.” In 1994, Edmund left his teaching job in Cape Haitian to start his own school in Pignon, located in Haiti’s rugged Central Plateau region. What he found was a community in desperate need of infrastructure and education. The town’s 36,000 residents, many of them illiterate, lacked access to public electricity, few had running water in their homes, and the roads were terrible. Today, thanks to NRECA International’s efforts and the U.S. co-ops that have partnered with them, Edmund and his community are creating a better life. After getting a connection from the Cooperative Electrique de Pignon, the area’s first electric co-op, life for Edmund and his family has changed considerably. “Before electric lighting,” recalls Edmund, “we couldn’t afford a generator. We had to use white gas lamps, and the smoke made our eyes burn.” Nowadays, Edmund’s five children— three girls and two boys—use higher-quality electric lighting to do their homework. “Our kids study later every night.”

Edmund and his wife are using a recently purchased television set to connect their children and students to the outside world. “We want them to learn geography, history, and social studies; we want to teach them English and Spanish.” Once power is round-the-clock—currently, it’s available on weeknights and during daytime church hours on Sundays—Edmund will introduce his students to computers. “Before electricity, everyone used to return home after dark and lock their doors,” says Edmund. “Now they’re less afraid. Small businesses stay open later, people use the community’s three Internet cafes, and evening church attendance is up.” A vibrant spiritual and social center, Edmund’s church hopes to purchase electric keyboards and guitars to accompany singers in the choir. Edmund knows electricity can lay the foundation for even bigger changes in Pignon. “If the project can build the infrastructure for manufacturing industries to grow, people won’t have to leave for Port-au-Prince or the Dominican Republic to find work; many who left will return in a heartbeat.” Joyful for the progress already made, Edmund says, “Before every church meeting, we wait anxiously and gratefully for the power to start.”