Cazale is located (more or less) 12 km from Cabaret and (more or less) 70 km from the Haitian capital. This village is the main population center of the Polish community in Haiti. The name Cazale originated from “Kay Zalewski,” which means ”house of Zalewski” (a well-known Polish last name). The village is populated by descendants of Polish soldiers sent by Napoleon in 1802. Initially, their mission was to fight on the French side in order to discipline the slaves. However, seeing the cruelty of the French towards the slaves; they changed sides, they helped the slaves to defend themselves. There were dark days in the history of Cazale. On March 27, 1969, the Tonton Macoute (Papa Doc militia) killed more than twenty Cazalais for having fiercely opposed the regime of François DUVALIER a.k.a Papa Doc. After that massacre most of the polish descent left Cazale to go elsewhere.
Cazale is exceptionally beautiful. There are a lot of rivers. It is a region in Haiti that gives hope because. If there was a good system of agriculture in the country, Cazale would have become the barn of Port-au-Prince. Alas, less people are interested in gardening and farming. Unfortunately, Cazale is not an exception in the rule – a lot of people are leaving the countrysides to go to the big cities – or to go to other countries. Therefore, INHO (Invest in Man/person) decides to invest in the young men and young women in Cazale in order to educate them, thus they can see value of their village. INHO wants to raise the awareness about the importance of agriculture – not only that – we start exposing the young people to farming and gardening.
From the beginning, INHO is a school of life, everyone has something to teach to others. Education is the key to opening the door to development of any country – speaking about education, it is not only the teaching or to show how to read and to write. Education is the development of the human person wholly: civic and moral, learning the value of family and its importance in a society, the importance of human labor, love and protect the environment, the role of justice and the respect for the common good, respect for others, showing that unity is unavoidable to build the community, respect for the weak, the cripples, the little ones – above all, learning to love one’s community and to give back to the community what we have been received. This is INHO’s vision of education. All our projects are to be executed in group, for the group, for the community, among youth and young adults; working together, side by side, hand in hand is very important – because we cannot remain standing if we are divided. In a culture where corruption infests all institutions, it is more than necessary to learn young people how transparency is important for the wellbeing of the nation. Unity is at the same time an end a mean. An end because we always need to stay united – it is also a mean to reach transparency – working alone, you have no one to give an account of what you have good or bad – being transparent is also being accounted for. Unity, working together foster the need to be transparent with one another. Transparency and giving back to the community are two leitmotivs of our association. All our activities, even the fight against famine must be educative. We cannot neglect the importance of a good religious education in which faith and raison come together.