A WORD FROM DALE SNYDER TO FOREST HILL CHURCH

Dale Snyder is Executive Director of Haiti Outreach.  He recently spent a few hours in Cleveland with Deanne Lentz, Jeff and Ann Smith, and Kermit Lind.  Dale told us about how he got involved with Haiti Outreach and we told him about how the Forest Hill Church Haiti mission has developed.

At the end of our visit, Dale made a statement intended for the Forest Hill Church community about its fundraising event for a well in Gabo, Haiti.  Here it is.

A Word From Dale Snyder

Here is a video of Dale telling the story of the well managed by the community of La Fontan and the difference access to clean, safe water is making. 

La Fontan Community Well Video

WHERE IS GABO AND WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?

The little village of Gabo, Haiti is not an easy place to find on a map.  First, it helps to know something about how Haiti is organized. 

The Republic of Haiti is divided administratively into ten departments. The departments are further divided into 42 arrondissements, and 140 communes.    In the Arrondissement of Hinche, look for the Commune and Municipality of Maissade. 
(This link will help.) (Here is a map with Maissade located.)

The Commune of Maissade is divided into three administrative districts, one of which in the northern area is called Hatty.   (Here is what I could find about Hatty.)  Notice that there is not much reported about this very remote, rural spot on the globe.  The village of Gabo is located in the District of Hatty.

According to the census taken by its newly formed well management committee, Gabo is a village of 241 persons in 40 households.  Water source(s) are miles away and not safe for human use.  Most households have latrines, although they may or may not be sanitary.  

Taking a census is an exceptional event in any part of Haiti.  It is one of the very first community development tasks that Haiti Outreach trains the local well management committee to do.  It is not only a matter of counting all the people; it is also a way for the the committee members to establish themselves as responsible and accountable community leaders of the entire project.  

Here are some photos Haiti Outreach provided to show us the transformation going on in Gabo right now.

This young woman is filling her water bucket for the long trek back home.

A community meeting about the community managed well.

 Learning to lead with authority, responsibility, accountability and transparency 

requires serious education with Haiti Outreach staff organizers and teachers.

You are invited to participate in this partnership with the residents of Gabo.  

• Attend the fundraising event on Sept. 14 at SOHO.  Click on this link for your invitation.

• Make a donation to the Gabo community managed well project payable to Forest Hill Church - Haiti well project at Forest Hill Church, 3031 Monticello Blvd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.

• Learn more about the sustainable development mission of Haiti Outreach and its Adopt-A-Well program from this website.

--Kermit Lind

HOW HAITI OUTREACH BUILDS COMMUNITY WITH WELLS

The Adopt-a-Well Program

Haiti Outreach Community Well at La Fontan

Haiti Outreach operates a new program that should interest many individuals, churches, and schools, along with Rotary Clubs and other civic groups and foundations: The Adopt-a-Well Program!  In its 17 year history of community development, Haiti Outreach has earned a reputation of excellence as an organization that works with Haitian communities to build sustainable facilities for transforming life.  

The Forest Hill Church Haiti Mission has committed to raising funds to sponsor a well for the little village of Gabo in the Central Plateau region of the country.  The community there has asked Haiti Outreach for a well, with the blessings of the municipal mayor and the national clean water authority.  And at the same time, village's leaders have made a commitment to develop their capacity to manage the well permanently with their own personnel and resources.

In this program, the sponsor raises the money for a specific community managed well in rural Haiti. Each community has a name, population, and its own story about where and how far people have to go to get contaminated water that they bring home daily for their families to use.  In order to receive its well, each community must have its own organization responsible for permanently managing its well and the distribution of clean water.  

This newer method of developing a local community well management group to take responsibility, be accountable to the whole community, and do their work in a transparent way is transforming life in rural Haiti.  The success rate for clean water wells in operation steadily over more than five years has dramatically increased from about 50% to more than 90%.  That translates into better health and fewer deaths from contaminated water.  It leads the way to better sanitation and living standards.

Once the funds are raised and donated to Haiti Outreach, their staff begins the process of engaging the people of that community and training a volunteer water management committee. When they have been sufficiently trained, the well will be developed on community owned land and completed with a ceremonial inauguration. While that process is underway, the sponsors can be informed as to the progress of the well management training and drilling.

Haiti Outreach produces 50 community managed wells a year. That impacts 18,000 – 20,000 people every year.   But in order to do this,  need to raise the money to maximize our capacity.  Each well costs $15,000, so that is the sponsor’s goal. Of course, if the sponsoring group could raise funds for more than one well, that would be great! If the sponsor can only raise half that much, another group is recruited to add funds in order to reach the goal.

If some members of the sponsoring group wanted to travel to Haiti during this process to visit the community, or to attend the well inauguration, Haiti Outreach will do its best to facilitate that as part of a trip to see Haiti and other community development projects of Haiti Outreach.

Here is a very specific and concrete way YOU can make the difference in the lives of hundreds of people in one of the poorest countries in the world, not only for today, but for years to come as they maintain their well. Become a sponsor and literally save lives with clean water and sanitation education.

For more news and information about Haiti Outreach click on this link.  For a video telling this story click on this link.

NGO'S AND HAITI'S GOVERNMENT: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HELP HAITI'S PEOPLE?

Since the Haiti earthquake of 2010, attention has been focused on the miserable records of both the international community of NGOs and the government of Haiti to effectively deliver relief and reconstruction to the people directly and indirectly hurt by catastrophes.  Actually, that problem preceded the earthquake and has dogged Haiti for most of its history as a nation.

Now comes an article in Foreign Policy by Clare Lockhart and Johanna Mendelson Foreman suggesting an approach to better cooperation between NGOs and the Haitian government.  They prescribe dialogue.  Rick Cohen, an editor for the Nonprofit Quarterly responds with doubt about the possibility of successful dialogue.  Both of these articles are linked here below.

I urge my friends reading this blog to take a look at these two articles.  I have attempted in my blogging to distinguish between help and development that is toxic and hurtful, on the one hand, and the work of building community-based capacity in Haiti that can receive and sustain our well-intended aid to the Haitian people on the other hand.  In doing so, I have observed and pointed to the mission and methods of Haiti Outreach as an example of how to do things better.  

The Haiti Outreach difference is that it finds ways to work with local communities to develop the capacity of the intended beneficiaries of capital resources to maintain clean and life-giving water systems. They partner with local and national officials to establish community-based authority.  They make sure all who have responsibilities carry out those responsibilities with integrity and transparency.  That includes Haiti Outreach, whose financial records, for instance, are published right on their website.  Their program staff is virtually all Haitian.

So with those kinds of principles in mind, take a look at these two articles below.  They aren't that long or difficult.  See what you think about how we in the NGO world might act to be more effective in Haiti.

"Four years after a devastating earthquake, Haiti remains a mess. It's time to bring Haitians from all walks of life into a national conversation about the country's future." 

Why Haiti Needs a National Dialogue

"Given the challenges that Lockhart and Forman detail in the article, a Haitian national discussion seems well intentioned but difficult to imagine getting very far." 

  A Prescription for Haiti’s NGO-Related Problems: Heal Thyself

KREYOL: SPREADING THE WORD

The Forest Hill Church mission team attended a very special church service at the Episcopal Cathedral on our visit in the fall of 2013.  It was the first service in which Kreyol was used as the primary language for the entire service.  Until that Sunday services were in French even though the vast majority of Haitians speak only Kreyol.  French is regarded as a "foreign" language, the language of imperialism and the very elite in Haitian society.

Now the Haitian government is pushing harder to make Kreyol the nations dominant language.  By teaching in the Kreyol language, learning is accessible to more children and underscores the reality that their lives and future in the own country do not depend on learning a foreign language.

For recent news about this issue look at these articles:

Help for Haiti must include embracing Creole

By Jacques Pierre

February 20, 2014 

A Creole Solution for Haiti’s Woes

By MICHEL DeGRAFF and MOLLY RUGGLES

AUG. 1, 2014

--kjl

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/20/3640172/help-for-haiti-must-include-embracing.html#storylink=cpy

FUNDRAISING EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Here is the announcement and invitation you have been waiting for!!  Make your reservation now!

The sponsors know that everyone who would like to come to this event will not be able to fit it into their social calendar or travel the distance to get here.  If you want to participate in this project and cannot attend on September 14, your donation will be most welcome.  Thank you.

IT'S ABOUT LATRINES

Haiti Outreach published a report this week on a community development project for better health. The report is not about clean, community managed wells this time.  It's about latrines.  It is also about the process of changing personal habits for better health and life in rural Haiti.   Read the article here.

Postscript:   I am tempted to draw comparisons between the latrine development project of Haiti Outreach to transform unhealthy waste management in poor villages with our struggle to get global financial corporations and their various servicers to adopt good habits about handling the solid waste they excrete and abandon in Cleveland's residential neighborhoods hardest hit by the mortgage crisis. I won't.  I've already tried to make that point elsewhere.

--kjl