We arrived in Port au Prince on Monday at 8:00 a.m. (Sunday had been a full day of packing, a presentation at our church, and a sleepless red-eye from San Francisco). We traveled the countryside of Haiti in the back of a pickup truck and worked with our partners until 11:00 pm. This was the longest work day I can remember.
Doug Stevens of The Leadership Connection traveled with me to meet with and provide leadership training for Pastors in Haiti. Just as we arrived I received notification that due to manifestations (demonstrations) in Grand Goave relating to the recent election we would not have our meeting there. At the airport we began scheduling an event in Port au Prince, for Thursday to replace the lost training session. Working in Haiti requires a lot of flexibility. The call to cancel the Grand Goave meeting was the right one. As we passed through the town there was a massive UN presence keeping the peace. It was not a good time for a large gathering.
We stopped in Aquin to leave books for my young friend Pierre. He and his friend have been teaching themselves English sharing a battered dictionary, so I brought him a new one and a few other books. I also delivered nail clippers to him for his community to help combat cholera and diarhea from bacteria under the nails.
Then we headed to L'Azile and I was amazed at how smooth the road was. It is unpaved, so it will only stay smooth until the rainy season. I walked the first field with transplanted jatropha from the nursery there where 500 new seedlings are waiting for the first rains of the season. These seedlings are border cropped around a field with banana trees and other food crops. The 10,000 seedling nursery for this community is under cultivation and by summer all of those seedlings will be transplanted.
I visited the L'Azile school to see the progress on the technology center. The computers were en route to the school from Cap Haitian and by summer the class will have it's first students enrolled. I also walked the school land and discussed the sustainable kitchen garden project. The garden will supply food for the school and educate the students who care for it. The first site was deemed too close to the soccer field (the Director was concerned that the boys might destroy the garden) so it is being re-located to a safer area. This project was envisioned by an incredible student from the Oakland College Preperatory School, Callie Roberts. Callie has given a tremendous amount of time and effort to make the lives of the children we work with in Haiti better. She started by collecting clothing and French books, then worked with the Ashoka Youth Project to fund the sustainable kitchen garden for the school, and, in response to the earthquake, wrote an educational pamphlet for children in Haiti to help them understand what earthquakes are, and why they happen. Callie is a remarkable girl, and I look forward to seeing where life takes her. I'm quite sure many more will benefit from her incredible spirit.
We got back into the truck and drove to Les Cayes where we spent the night. I was able to meet with people there, our first partners ESMI, and discuss the IEEE/Sirona Haiti Rural Electricity Project. The excitement over that project is indescribable. This is the first opportunity for affordable, sustainable electricity in homes at a price Haitians can afford. I spent a great portion of this trip explaining the project to groups and individuals, poor and wealthy Haitians, and the reception is consistently one of excitement. Many great things happened on this trip (and I've only covered the first day!).
Haiti's earthquake got the world's attention and many issues that had existed prior to the devastating quake were brought to the world's attention. Sirona Cares was on the ground a year before the earthquake working to help communities become self-sustaining. While donors may be baffled by the lack of progress in Haiti, it's truly unfair to say that nothing has been done. In particular the small-medium sized organizations have accomplished much and will continue to do so as Haiti rebuilds. The presidential election is concluding, and now Haiti can begin to find her way forward.
We leave Sunday night for Haiti. On this trip we will make final preparations for the arrival of the IEEE/Sirona Haiti Rural Electricity Project which will light 240 homes and start six new businesses and create new jobs in areas where there is currently no access to electricity. People are excited.
Also we will distribute 10,000 new Jatropha seedlings from our Petit Goave nursery. The team that runs the nursery will be commended for their hard work, and we will discuss doubling the capacity of the nursery because there are so many farmers anxious to participate in our program.
Jatropha plants last 25-45 years and their seeds are rich in oil that is so low in glycerine that it is a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel. Right now though, the farmers are most interested in preserving topsoil and stopping erosion on their farms with the seedlings we provide. Jatropha plants add nitrates to the soil, thus improving exhausted soil in their small plots.
Sirona Cares mission is to build sustainable communities. To that end we focus on economic development through alternative energy, and on the children in the communities where we work. We've come up with a new program that incorporates both. Many farmers have access to land that is not currently under cultivation; and many schools provide the only meal that children receive in a day. We think we have a solution for the farmers and the schools.
The initial request from farmers was for loans to clear unused land and plant Jatropha. These loans would have been repaid through future Jatropha seed harvests in increments that still allowed farmers some profitability. What makes Sirona's Jatropha project unique is our focus on inter-cropping with food crops rather than creating mono-culture Jatropha plantations that compete with food production. Instead of loaning farmers money to grow Jatropha alone, we will pre-purchase food for local schools. The farmers will clear the land for Jatropha, but also incorporate food crops that will be taken to schools to repay their debt. The farmer will have more land under cultivation, and schools gain access to food for their students. Jatropha production will improve if the plants are cared for alongside the food crops.
Earth Day is around the corner, and if you're not sure how you will celebrate, please consider supporting our work in Haiti. For every dollar we receive, ten Jatropha trees are planted. So far we've planted 50,000 trees in Haiti and created a positive future impact estimated at 6.25 million dollars, and all of this was accomplished through donor support.
I thought I'd share our travel itinerary, we pack in a lot on our trips!
April 10th, leave San Francisco on the red eye to Miami, catch the 7:00 flight to Haiti and arrive at 8:05 local time (or six a.m. San Francisco time). After flying all night our trip starts. We ride from Port au Prince with our L'Azile agronomist who will take us first to Aquin where we will pick up our translator, Pierre, a charming teenager I met last summer, and we will drive on to L'Azile. I have been told that the potholes on the L'Azile road have been filled, and what used to take an hour now only takes ten minutes... we'll see.
In L'Azile we will visit our jatropha nursery, check on the sustainable kitchen garden planted by the Global Call to Youth, and the computer center that was set up with equipment from Tech Assist Haiti. We will take Pierre home and continue to Les Cayes where we will stay with our old friends from ESMI, the St. Germain family. We will sleep well!
The next day my companions will meet with Haitian Pastors. In my advocacy role I facilitate introductions between groups that want to help in Haiti, like The Leadership Connection, and Haitian groups that need suppport. They will have meetings and discuss their projects, and I'm hoping to see some of the kids I haven't seen for a while at the Cambry orphanage.
On Wednesday we travel to Petit Goave to distribute jatropha seedlings. I am very excited to see the progress of this group, and honored to be present at their first distribution. We will be joined by two American Pastors involved with the TLC project and a medical doctor who brings groups to Haiti. I'm excited to connect this group with the Mission of Hope, who regularly hosts medical and missions teams.
We will spend the night at Mission of Hope's beachfront compound in Grand Goave. I'm hoping to see Hal, and bring him some Oreos! I will sleep under the choukoun (a grass covered patio) and listen to the ocean. If you wake before the sun rises (which is easy because of the roosters) you see the fishing boats out on the water, each with a small fire burning in it creating bright dots in the distance.
On Thursday TLC will meet with Pastors, and I will have discussions with the Lex and Renee Edme about the upcoming deployment of the IEEE/Sirona Haiti Rural Electricity Program. That equipment is in New York where IEEE members are improving the home battery kits to ensure longer use between re-charges. As always I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, and making new ones.
Early Friday, April 15th, we head back to the airport. It's best to get into Port au Prince early, before the traffic, and our flight leaves at 9:10 for Miami. (Hoping we won't have a fender-bender on the way to the airport this time!) If all goes as planned we will arrive home at 7:20 p.m. (or about 12 hours later).
After every trip I'm always thankful first for my family, and then for electricity, clean water, hot water... things we take for granted. I get home tired, but there's something about Haiti that restores me. I will have the deployment trip to look forward to, and lots of work to do for it's preparation in between trips.
I recently spoke at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy as part of a lecture series on non-profit organizations. It was interesting to prepare this speech for graduate students and a moment to realize how much we've learned, sometimes the hard way.
To summarize my speech on Non-Profit Best Practices, my comments were:
If someone is already doing what you want to do, go work for them. The effort to start/run your organization parallels the work of getting your project off the ground. You won't get paid, and you're actively working in two directions at once. It makes more sense to go work for a non-profit, learn how they do what they do, and enhance their program with your skills.
Expect to be surprised by your funding sources. Don't assume that people who support you personally will support you financially; do expect to be surprised by donors who you would have never expected support from. New organizations don't receive grants or serious funding for some time, so expect a long haul to prove yourself before expecting funds from grants.
Focus on sustainable programs. Organizations like Sirona Cares are here to help people to gain economic stability, and that comes from projects that generate revenue in the community for that community--charity is really, really tough. Charity can be very debilitating. If you incorporate economic sustainability into your plan, you can do what a non-profit should do in the future: extract yourself from a viable community and start again where you are needed. Take a hard look at your goals, and if extraction is not one of them, then you have may inflict damage rather than give support to the community you wish to help.
Don't make promises that you can't keep: For a myriad of reasons groups pull out of projects before completing them. In Haiti we see a culture so used to broken promises that every new organization immediately faces the hurdle of proving itself. Learning to never make a promise that I can't be 100% certain I will keep is something I deal with all of the time, I'm dealing with it today. We were to deploy our IEEE/Sirona Rural Electricity Program in January, however delayed equipment created shipping delays. I know it will get there, yet for those people waiting to light their homes I'm currently in the "broken promise" place, and it's not a good place to be in. I shouldn't have given them the deployment date until the ship was on the water, a hard lesson learned. Never commit to anything that you are not absolutely positive will happen.
Collaborate. Small organizations move more quickly than large ones and without bureacracy. Haiti has more NGOs per capita than any other country, but this only proves helpful to Haitians when groups work in harmony. Without collaboration there is waste; with collaboration organizations fill in each other's gaps, allocate resources wisely, and accomplish more than any one organization could alone. Following the earthquake there was a great surge of unity between organizations that work in Haiti, and this has in built up stronger networks than ever before. This momentum should be capitalized on and sought world-wide.
Keep "you" out of it. The reason for doing this work should not be about you, or what you want to accomplish. That train of thought places "you" in competition with "them" (others striving for the same goals). The intention should be to work together, check your pride at the door, and realize that if you're really, really successful your programs will have a lasting positive impact for generations... and none of those people will every know who you are. You're there as a partner, not as a hero. Ultimately it's the community you are working with that will pull themselves up, because they will take ownership of your project, and their success will belong to them.
If you work on sustainable development projects and decide to tackle something as profound as energy poverty, it's easier to see the long road ahead than the progress you make. This morning I got an e-mail from a friend asking how things were going. I said that we had planted 50,000 jatropha trees already, and our goal is 250,000 by the end of the year. We're at 20% of goal in mid-February, which is great. Then I started thinking about the financial impact this project has for our communities in Haiti and that already we've created the potential for over six million dollars of positive impact for Haiti. I apply these facts and assumptions:
FACTS:
Jatropha oil is a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel and can run most generators/diesel engines without refinement. It's value compares to fossil fuel.
Our farmers displace no food crops with this project, and pay nothing to participate. We provide the nursery, training and seedlings.
This is a non-profit effort to sustainably improve lives in rural Haiti.
Jatropha is non-invasive and has grown in Haiti for hundreds of years.
Our model is co-op based, non-exclusive and collaborative.
Sirona buys/leases no land in Haiti for our project.
All fuel sale profits are re-invested in development work in Haiti.
ASSUMPTIONS:
Jatropha plants should live for 25-45 years, I've taken 25 for my assumption.
Over the next 25 years the price for a diesel substitute will not rise above $5.00 per gallon. This is a lower value than diesel sells at today (around $8/gallon) and a very safe assumption.
Each tree produces enough seed to create one gallon of jatropha oil per year. We are testing this, and feel it is a safe assumption. Internationally this is a conservative number, but we're not in India or Africa, and we won't know until we harvest. Because our plants are inter-cropped with food crops (rather than using the poorest land available), we believe that they will receive the care necessary to produce this amount of oil. A plus of this farming method is that jatropha puts nitrates back into the soil, repairing and improving the food crop's soil.
So, here is what I wrote to my friend today, and wanted to share on the blog:
Every donation of $100 plants 1,000 jatropha trees
Each tree produces one gallon of fuel a year ($100 donation=1,000 gallons of fuel)
Each gallon is worth $5 ($100 donation=$5,000)
Each tree will produce at this level for 25 years ($100 donation will put $5,000 into the Haitian economy per year and $125,000 over time.)
Today, with 50,000 trees in the ground, our project will put $6.25 Million dollars into the Haitian economy over time:
In two years, these 50,000 trees should produce 50,000 gallons of fuel a year, for 25 years.
At $5 per gallon, the fuel sales will inject $250,000 per year into our farming communities
Over the life of the trees, the financial impact (if our assumptions are accurate) will be $6.25 Million dollars
And we all know what they say about a-s-s-u-m-p-t-i-o-n-s. Even if we're wrong, even if it's half of that, the project will put more than $3 Million dollars a year into a country desperate for revenue generating projects, re-forestation projects, improved soil and alternative fuel sources. I've addressed the nay-sayers there, but to the supporters: just what if we're right? If we reach our goal of planting 250,000 trees this year, the financial impact two years later will be around $625,000 per year culminating in $31.25 Million over the life of the trees. That's really, really exciting to stop and ponder.
If you have a dime in your pocket (well, I think the minimum donation on Paypal is $5), send us a donation. That dime will create $5 in revenue per year for the Haitian community, and ultimately provide $125 dollars worth of positive impact. $5 bucks, or 500 trees creates $2,500 per year for 25 years, or $62,500 over the life of the tree (unless I'm wrong, and it's half, meaning your $5 will only made a $31,250 impact.) All this without displacing a single food crop, and at the same time improving the global environment and Haiti in many ways (slowing deforestation; creating a low carbon/low emission fuel substitute; improved soil, creating a clean-burning charcoal alternative, not to mention many jobs and community improvements...).
We have enrolled over 1,000 farmers excited to participate in the program. We can't keep up with demand at our nurseries and would love to plant faster. Next year's goal is completing 1 Million trees, and we could make that this year with adequate funding. The more fuel we produce and sell in Haiti the better; if it can't be sold in Haiti it is a very valuable export for which I have a guaranteed buyer. We expect the Haitian market for this oil to be robust, but we have a back-up plan just in case.
Today I feel really excited. I can look at where we are, what our Haitian partners have accomplished, and breathe for a moment. Once I click "Publish" I will turn back to the long road in front of us... but it has been a really, really good morning.
Tensions are high in Haiti. The country is struggling through a prolonged Presidential election process which has created a setting for the frustrations of the Haitian people to be played out. There will be, no doubt, coverage of events as they unfold if there is violence and strife. Sadly that is the picture ever present of Haiti in the press: struggle, poverty, disease and violence. There are important stories to be told, of course, but there are many organizations making progress, and unfortunately these stories are not generally captured.
I write most often about our development work because there is so much going on. We've planted 50,000 trees and just this week I received a request to double the size of a nursery because 10,000 trees at a time isn't fast enough for the demand. That project, designed to put the power to create, use and market biofuel in the hands of Haitian farmers without displacing any food crops is moving at a pace I am surprised, humbled and delighted by.
Our IEEE/Sirona Rural Electricity Project, bringing electricity to 240 homes in rural Haiti and starting 6 new businesses, is another big project that is underway. We launch the pilot as soon as the equipment gets to Haiti, hopefully later this month. This project with the IEEE is designed to bring light to 1,000,000 Haitians in five years time. It's hard to understate the positive effects of these two projects. Not only do they create clean, alternative energy sources for people, as well as increased income and a better standard of living, but having electric light alone changes lives. Children can study after dark, and it's worth mentioning that as soon as a community has electric light the birth rates drop. (Once they've got television, the birth rate plummets). I'm not suggesting, by the way, that we put televisions throughout Haiti, but I am stating that positive change is getting a jumpstart in our rural communities.
In addition to sustainable development work we also advocate for our partners who care for and educate Haitian children. On that front I wanted to show the pictures of children in their uniforms that were purchased from local seamstresses in L'Azile and Jeremie. The uniform funds were collected when a little boy, Kian, turning 6 gave up his birthday gifts and asked instead that people buy school uniforms for the kids in Haiti. Uniforms are required at schools in Haiti, and the $15 it costs to buy them can present an insurmountable hurdle to some parents. This gift put children in school who would not have been able to attend this year otherwise. These are the little stories that bring joy and improvement, but don't make the news. These stories are powerful as well. Kian changed these children's lives by giving up his birthday gifts. What we may seem a small thing can make a huge difference in Haiti. Ten cents plants a tree, $15 can keep a child in school.
We press on with our work in the rural areas where much is happening with not only our group, but many, that is not well publicized.
I look at feedback reports on this blog to be sure I'm not just typing to myself. The number of daily views spikes when crisis hits Haiti, and I'm not surprised that with today's tensions numbers rose again.
I see generally that there is an audience out there that wants to see progress on the ground in Haiti, and as long as we are making progress and people are interested I will keep posting. Thanks for reading!
We're very excited about launching our IEEE/Sirona Rural Electricity Program next month, but we've haven't slowed down on the Jatropha project. I am excited to report the start of two new nurseries this month. With over 1,000 farmers enrolled in our program we're confident that by the end of the year we will have planted 250,000 trees. Photos show the beginning of the nursery in Petit Goave that is already full of seedlings, and the tools that the nursery set-up dollars paid for.
Jatropha was hailed as a magic bullet internationally because its oil from its seeds is a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel. Initially there was a rush to purchase or lease large tracts of land for Jatropha plantations resulting in food crop displacement. Many Jatropha projects failed because field maintenance costs created poor economics and food displacement is a very real issue.
Our program is unique because we're creating the possibility for the small farmer in Haiti to succeed without displacing any food production. Haitian farmers are typically not monoculture farmers, usually there are a number of things being grown in a garden. We provide the seedlings from our nurseries and train them on safe intercropping. Haitians know Jatropha, it grows wild there. Because it is not eaten by animals, it was traditionally used to mark graves in Haiti. It's also a popular hedge crop.
Haiti suffers from severe deforestation resulting in great losses of topsoil and landslides. Much of the soil is depleted of minerals, and crops are not thriving as they could. Jatropha addresses both stabilizes the land (shrubs will live for 25-45 years) and puts nitrates back into the soil. Jatropha oil is, in fact, a drop-in replacement for diesel fuel. By simply crusing the seeds and filtering the oil you can run generators or stretch regular diesel for almost any diesel engine. The biproduct of the crushing process, seedcake, makes a nitrogen rich fertilizer or can be compressed into charcoal briquettes (reducing the need to cut down trees for charcoal and creating revenue for the farmers in addition to the seed sale).
Fuel is the path that dollars take out of every community in the world, and by placing the power to grow, use and sell clean fuel in the hands of Haitians we are addressing many issues, both Haitian and global. We've planted 30,000 trees already and now have 20,000 seedlings in our nurseries. By the end of the year we will have planted 250,000 trees. Jatropha oil is a valuable export but our goal is to sell the oil in Haiti at a price that sustains the program. Sirona Cares is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and we roll all profits from fuel sales back into infrastructure development in Haiti. The project is scalable, replicable, and well received.
Jatropha is NOT a magic bullet. Jatropha IS a plant with incredible properties that can be grown without displacing food, improve soil for food crops, slow erosion, and reverse deforestation allowing other trees to grow again on the mountains of Haiti. This project is an environmentally responsible approach to helping impoverished communities help themselves, and in the process offset carbon emmissions of other countries.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and this is a photo of the first home battery kit that we are putting into a Haitian home next month. This kit is one of 240 that will be sent out into the rural parts of Haiti bringing the first electricity to these homes. Each customer will receive this battery, the lights, the wiring, and a cell phone charger, and for $50 Haitian dollars per month they can recharge their battery as often as they need to and provide light to their families.
$50 Haitian dollars may sound like a lot, but converted to our dollar we're talking about $6.21 per month for electric light. This is a pilot price that we are studying to see if it works for the customers and the entrepreneur who runs the charging station. Our price was set by surveying the amount that Haitians pay for cell phone charging, candles and kerosene, costs all offset by this unit. Each entrepreneur receives a trailer with six large solar panels and an additional four large batteries to run a business for himself. The goal is to create a situation where he can make a good living from the equipment and make a $200/month US lease payment.
We are carefully designing the entire project with several goals in mind. Foremost, we want the entrepreneur to succeed and start his business with no debt. For the first three months he can collect and keep all customer lease payment to purchase the equipment he will need to start his business. Almost every one of these first six unit managers are proposing refrigerators as an equipment need. We are allowing them to create any business that will work for them in their area. In one case it's an internet cafe with cold drinks. That station is co-located with a school and church on the road to Jacmel- a beautiful road with no rest stops. Another is in a village where they plan to use the equipment for multiple small businesses, ironing, juice making, cold drinks and coffee drying.
By giving entrepreneurs a head start we help them succeed in using the equipment to their advantage and be able to make the lease payments that keep the program sustainable. Our goal is to work in harmony with the Haitian utilities and as power becomes available in areas we will have created for them customers that can pay for power. All of our equipment is mobile, so as we become obsolete in one area we will move further into the dark parts of Haiti and create businesses and provide homes with light until the utilities reach them. When all of Haiti has power we can roll our units out and into other countries where the need for light and small business development exists.
All of this is made possible by the ingenuity and compassion of members of the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The CSI Group (Community Solutions Initiative) has worked tirelessly developing this culturally appropriate solution for Haiti. The units are currently being fabricated and readied for transport. The IEEE groups who have provided funding for this program are: Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC), Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS) and Power and Energy Society (PES). Sirona Cares is very grateful to the IEEE for investing in Haiti, and excited about working with them to deploy these pilots in February.
We had intended to ship in January but for several reasons we will be sending our equipment to Haiti in early February. Our partners are anxiously awaiting deployment of these six pilot units.
In a nutshell, the systems are six trailers (four feet wide and eight feet long) which each have six solar panels of the same dimensions that are mounted on frames that can open and expand. There are four large (200 lb.) batteries in each trailer for a Haitian enterpreneur to begin a business. Our most common business idea has been making ice.
In addition to these four large batteries there are 40 battery kits for customers to lease and take to their homes. Each kit has a rechargeable battery, wiring, two lights and a cell phone charger. For a rate comperable to the cost of candles, cell phone charging and kerosene Haitians will be able to have electric light in their homes. The excitement in the hills is contagious, I can't wait to get there next month and see it all in the field.
So today our dedicated IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) are busy fabricating the pilot units in Long Island and I am busy acquiring quick Kreyol translations for instructions/labels/etc.
It's exciting work, and meaningful. The dedication of the IEEE members is incredible. Our six Haitian small businesses will have three months to get started, meaning that they may keep the lease payments made by customers for the first three months. This should fund the refrigerator or any other initial start-up equipment they need without incurring debt. Then, beginning in month four they will begin a monthly lease payment for the equipment so that it can pay for itself over time.
Haitians crave the ability to work and make a living. This project has many positive impacts, the obvious and the less obvious. It's very hard for Americans to imagine what it's like to live without any electricity. I know that our project creates businesses, jobs and that for the first time many children will be able to do homework after dark. Haitians are very good at creating income streams and we know that many will offset the cost of their equipment by charging their friends phones... the list of postive impact will certainly go on and on.
One group I am very excited about is at an orphanage in Jeremie. The Pastor there has had orphans since 1982, and he has never had a sustainable source of income to provide for them. Now, with the unit we will deliver, he will finally have a revenue producing opportunity and light at his orphanage for the first time in eight years. Many of the children are younger than eight and have no memory of light in their home. If there is one place I want to be this year, it's at Pastor Honore's orphanage when the lights come on for the first time. It's going to be amazing.
I have not written since the anniversary of the earthquake. I have many mixed feelings and feared that I would not articulate any of them in a meaningful way. Nobody can imagine really what it was like for Haiti to lose hundreds of thousands of people in moments. The damage was beyond comprehension. The lack of a plan to move forward has crippled the country and with no strong government, no plan, no focus and no funding or solid international support Haiti is still paralyzed.
A year ago I was literally drowning in the goodwill of the Bay Area in response to the earthquake. I kept busy sorting and packing goods for survivors with volunteers to keep my mind off of all of the people I could not reach. I held a ticket for Haiti dated only days after the earthquake and it took me two more weeks to get into the country through the Dominican Republic. Donated planes flew us from one town to another allowing us to see many of our partners. Haiti a year ago was full of American military. When I arrived the streets were clogged with rubble, dust burned our eyes and throats, people slept in the roadways of Port au Prince, and NGO vehicles were everywhere. Signs were posted with pleas for food, water and medicine. The streets of Port au Prince were peaceful and eerily quiet, I have never experienced that level of calm in the city, before or since my Februrary visit.
Only some things have changed in a year. The signs are gone, as is much of the assistance. Haitians walk and live amongst the rubble of the earthquake. They lack every form of service we take for granted, namely access to clean water and electricity. A cholera epidemic has ravaged the country since October and turmoil from an unresolved presidential election looms ever present. The extremity of the poverty and the complexity of the issues in Haiti were hard to articulate yesterday, and today the ousted dictator, Duvalier (Baby Doc) has returned to Haiti.
I do not comment politics in Haiti. I spend all of my energy and building sustainable communities in the rural areas of Haiti. I work directly with community leaders designing programs with them that will benefit their people. We focus upon addressing energy poverty, and are bringing real solutions to village people. With over 1,000 farmers enrolled in our jatropha program we will soon see positive economic development in the countryside based on locally produced biofuel. When we deploy six electricity stations next month we will create six businesses and bringing light to 240 homes.
Our organization is successful because we listen to our Haitian partners and design with them programs that will work for them. It pains me to look at how little over-all progress has been made in Haiti over the past year. The urgent message that must come out of Haiti is that it is not hopeless; that people do want and will work for sustainable development. They prefer this option to charity. The population is young (a median age of 20) and they embrace change. In their memory there are no "good old days" and they desperately want to create a future. I would urge people who believe in the power of the human spirit to keep your eyes on our work in Haiti to be reassured that positive change is possible, and is taking place, regardless of the media's portrayal of this broken country.
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