Learning and Growing

Not all education at the Restavek Freedom Learning Center is confined to within the yellow and green cement walls. If you’re able to spot Gergins Samedy, 30, crouching down and prodding the soil with his machete to make a new home for the papaya plant that, until now, had been sprouting in his wheelbarrow-turned-nursery, you’ll find the perfect example. For Samedy, the hours he spends Monday through Saturday cultivating the back left quadrant of the Learning Center property are the ultimate test of his studies at the American University of the Caribbean in Les Cayes. Come August, he will resume in his fourth year.

“If I’m not successful with the garden, if I’m not successful with agriculture here, all of the people who visit the garden will see I’m not an agronomist, I’m not a cultivator, I’m not a student of the science of agriculture. Here, I get to prove my capacity, I get to prove my intelligence for the ground,” Samedy said.

Since February 2015, Samedy has been leaving the garden at his Dumont home to pursue his agronomy internship with Restavek Freedom, a commute that he says can take up to three hours when undertaken on foot. At the Learning Center, he currently grows eggplant, sweet peppers, and tomatoes, which he says are a rarity in Haitian gardens because of their level of difficulty to grow. Next, he plans to introduce plots of cucumber, melon, and okra, eventually hoping to market the crops to the various Learning Center staff. Despite the challenges, Samedy says he turns down invitations to visit other gardens because he wants to pioneer his own techniques and prove himself as an agronomist with the Restavek Freedom in Port Salut.

As he grows as an agronomist, he hopes to see the popularity of the trade take root in Haiti as well. “After I finish school, my dream, I want to help my country about the agriculture because Haiti needs the food to feed the people,” he said, later adding, “I want to teach people if you cultivate the soil you will have food to give your family.”

Expressing gratitude for the space to practice his work, Samedy said, “The Learning Center does beautiful things here.”

Written by Andrea Van Grinsven, 2015 Summer Intern