Sirona Cares

Sirona Gearing up for STAR-TIDES Field Demos

 

Lighting kit at STAR TIDES demo 2012

October is an excitng month for Sirona because we participate in two STAR TIDES field demonstrations in Washington DC.  STAR-TIDES is a Department of Defense funded program that stands for "Sharing To Accelerate Research-Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support".  The program promotes sustainable support to stressed populations – post-war, post-disaster, or impoverished, in foreign or domestic contexts, for short-term or long-term periods.   This year the first demonstration is at Ft. McNair from Oct. 1-4 and is open to the public, the second is at the Pentagon from Oct. 6-9.

 

 

We enjoy participating in these demonstrations because many solutions are required for stressed populations and integrated approaches to assist these communities are required.  For participants like Sirona it is a unique opportunity to network with groups who provide other pieces of the puzzle.  We use 1.5 kW solar charging stations to provide basic electricity to homes at the same price as kerosene, others provide shelter solutions, clean water solutions, mapping technologies, etc.  The two STAR-TIDES demos allow us to network and rely upon one anther going forward to better assist the populations we serve... and to find new opportunities to improve upon and expand our services to new populations.

Rarely does the non-profit or NGO world mix with the military and foreign policy makers.  Add in the relief agencies like FEMA and Red Cross and the interested public (including a field trip of middle-schoolers) and the STAR-TIDES event becomes very interesting and, well, as I started the post, becomes something we look forward to each year.  If you are in Washington I would love to meet you at STAR-TIDES!

 

 

Pentagon Demo Participants, 2012

 

 

 

Advocacy Work: Pretty Girls in Pretty Dresses

Sirona has been helping the Episcopal women of the Northern California Arch Dioscese get dresses to  little girls in Haiti for several years now.  Nearly 600 dresses have been made by these Episcopal women and deliverd to Sirona to Haiti for distribution.  Due to our strong networks throughout rural Haiti it is not difficult for us to deliver the dresses. 

The advocacy work we do generally takes the form of connecting resources to children in communities we work with.  For us, this work is joyful.  It fills us up, and cheers us up when the other work gets hard.  Advocacy projects don't feel like work... they feel like sharing an afternoon with a bunch of very happy little girls.  After that we always remember who we really are working for, and we are motivated to take back on the other issues and charge forward again.

IEEE Retrofit Progress

Portable battery kits, or "Ti Soley" kits bring affordable electricity into the homes of Sirona's customers to replace kerosene.  The program has been very successful and resulted in long waiting lists in rural Haiti.  Unfortunately the first people to use equipment are also the first to find its flaws.  The kits are designed with a low voltage disconnect (LVD) that protects the battery from being fully depleted to extend the life of batteries.  Unfortunately there was a flaw in the original LVD so we brought hundreds of kits back to Port au Prince for a retrofit run by the IEEE.  A newly designed LVD was put into the kits, all kits were repaired to perfect working order, and now they are being redeployed to our solar charging stations.

The retrofit was a massive endeavor.  Collecting kits, storing them, transporting them to the retrofit facility, and man hours required to test and retrofit every kit.  Sirona owes a great deal of thanks to many people who helped with this project.  We are especially grateful to the IEEE for seeing the retrofit through.  Sirona's Operators have patiently waited for repairs and are excited to see their inventories rising again.  This was a setback, but Sirona is ramping back up and preparing to quadruple the number of homes we serve within 18 months.  

Costly Break from Blogging

Sirona has been very busy with the energy work we do in Haiti.  The summer brought a lot of travel and our team accomplished a great deal.  The blog has definitely suffered as time between entries grew.  So much has happened that we need to catch up and show our supporters that we are making great progress.

As it turns out, if you take a break from blogging you receive (in our case) over 3,000 spam comments advertising everything anyone could possibly imagine.  It took hours to cull those out and it was a great punishment for failing to blog often enough.

We're back online, and we will be keeping you up to date on all of our work.

Thank you for hanging in with us!

Michelle Lacourciere

Sirona's Jatropha Project Creates Clean Fuel and Feeds Children

Sirona has over 1,000 farmers enrolled in our Jatropha Program.  These farmers receive free jatropha saplings to plant (2 meters x 2 meters) in and amongst their crops.  Jatropha seeds are harvested from the trees and they are then crushed to extract an oil that, once filtered, is a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel.  A by-product of crushing process is a seedcake that can be pressed into briquettes that burn cleaner than traditional charcoal.  The value of a jatropha tree keeps it safe and in the ground, and every tree planted helps Haiti's deforestation issue.

Our farmers sometimes need assistance to expand the amount of land under production.  Sirona makes "loans" of $50 to 10 farmers per year that are selected by community leaders.  These farmers are then able to extend their land and grow more food.  Rather than repay Sirona in cash, the community oversees repayment of the loan in food to the local school and/or community center.  Pictured above and b elow are happy children enjoying the food provided by local jatropha farmers. 

Sirona has worked with and supported farmers since we started working in Haiti.  We have also endeavored to feed children.  This successful program accomplishes both and we are proud to have completed the third year of loans to our farmers.

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