Our Projects

We work in Pays Pourri and Marozo, Haiti; neighboring mountain communities comprised of 62 villages between the two.  The average population of each village is approximately 300 people (no census data exists).  These are rugged and remote mountains, with no functioning roads into the area; it is a four-hour hike from the closest point that can be accessed by a vehicle to the first village we work in.  There is no electricity, running water, or medical services available. 

Children frequently walk up to five hours round-trip daily to collect water from streams that are also used for washing laundry, personal bathing, and watering animals.  This water is unfit to drink, and the long trek makes it difficult for children to attend school as consistently as they need.

Despite these – and many other – challenges, the communities we work with have carved out a sustained history of independence based on agricultural success rooted in community resilience.   

Unfortunately, due to climate change, weather patterns have shifted dramatically – putting people in the area at serious risk of becoming climate refugees.  Rains now come with far less frequency or predictability, and typically arrive in storms of much greater intensity.  Longer dry periods, separated by stronger storms that bring higher volumes of rain and more damaging winds has increased water stress, making it more difficult to grow crops – the lifeblood of villages throughout Haiti’s remote mountains. 

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Rainwater Harvesting (2016 – present)

The focal point of our project is to build high-capacity rainwater harvesting systems.  The systems we build are either attached to community buildings such as churches and schools, or to select lakous (a concentration of homes far from a larger village) throughout the area.  Each system collects and holds approximately 5,500 gallons of water, and is incredibly durable – nearly all having survived Hurricane Matthew.

All materials are purchased locally, and approximately $700 funds local employment for each complete system we build.  We pay skilled laborers to build (or repair) the cistern and install the harvesting apparatus – or “plumbing” – for each system we build. Each village or lakou that receives a complete rainwater harvesting system contributes the unskilled labor to dig the pit required for the cistern – the most labor intensive part of the process.  Each village is also responsible for the long-term maintenance of the system they receive; however, we do help with maintenance in certain cases – such as with rebuilding after Hurricane Matthew.    

Water Access

Improved access to clean water has many benefits:

1.     Reduces time children must walk to collect water – allowing them to spend more time in school

2.     Rainwater is much cleaner, and easier to treat, than water collected from streams – helping improve community health

3.     Increased water access improves community sanitation and personal hygiene practices

4.     Improves agricultural production

Agricultural Impact

The rainwater harvesting systems we build hold 5,500 gallons of water.  Such a large and readily accessible supply of water has improved agricultural production by permitting micro-irrigation:

1.     Farmers can cultivate crop seedlings through unpredictable dry periods

2.     Sharp increase of community gardens, providing a wider variety of healthy vegetables

3.     Individual households can more easily grow plants for specific needs   

Leadership Development

We are committed to working with local community leaders throughout the entire process of what we do.  This is a fundamental element of responsible international aid and development work, which makes our impact more appropriate, effective, and adaptable.  Beyond those important outcomes, focusing on local leadership development means we are helping to foster skills that will continue to positively impact the communities we work with long after we are gone.  

We learn as much from the communities we work with, as they learn from us – likely much more.  This allows us to bring what we learn in Haiti to other areas where we work, as well as into the educational arm of our organization – thus, exponentially growing our impact. 

WASH Education (2010 – present)

We coordinate WASH education programs (water, sanitation and hygiene) at schools, churches, and during all of our community meetings. 

1.     Provides awareness about minimizing the spread of water borne disease such as cholera

2.     Promotes basic sanitation and hygiene practices

3.     Future programs to includes a feminine hygiene component – an important, yet often neglected, aspect of WASH education

WASH education is an important bridge between our current work with what originally brought us to Haiti in 2010: water filter distribution.

Water Filter Distribution: a complex history (2010 – 2015)

We first came to Haiti in response to the cholera epidemic that was introduced by the UN after the 2010 earthquake that killed over 250,000 people.  Our initial strategic approach was modeled after the – far too common – practice of mass distributing a gravity-based water filter (attached to a 5-gallon bucket) manufactured by Sawyer.

After three years of distributing these water filters, we came to the conclusion that – certainly within the context of our project, but also for long-term development planning in general – this strategy is ineffective, inappropriate, and in many ways … irresponsible.  

Over the next two years we tweaked our programming and technical approach quite a bit, but most importantly we spent more time listening, observing, learning.  We also kept coming back, earning the trust of the people we work with … trust that established a more genuine line of communication between our organization and the community.

We learned that the water filters we distributed were not seen as an effective response to their needs.  The issue they felt was most important – by far – was the lack of long-term access to water … not just for drinking or sanitation, but also for agriculture.  As we began to better understand the mechanics of a shift in our strategy, the UN had briefly funded a pilot program in the area to build a series of a newly designed rainwater harvesting systems (the design we currently build).     

The overall benefits of this design were immediately obvious, and it was clear that people in the area wanted these systems as the focus of their water access improvement strategy.  The pilot program included specialized training for three local men as lead engineers for three separate teams to build systems throughout the area.  Unfortunately, the UN ended the program almost as soon as it began.  People were understandably frustrated.

With substantial input from the community, we decided to continue building the UN systems as the focal point of our work in the area.  Local capacity and motivation for our project are strong, and we can already see that our shift in strategy has proven to be impactful, scalable, replicable and sustainable.  

For this, we are grateful.