Thursday, August 21, 2014

HOW HAITI OUTREACH BUILDS COMMUNITY WITH WELLS

The Adopt-a-Well Program

Haiti Outreach Community Well at La Fontan
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.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

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.





Saturday, August 2, 2014

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

A Creole Solution for Haiti’s Woes
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.