Earthquake Relief
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SOIL Staff
Sarah Brownell is an advocate of empowering people using technology. She received her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology (98), and her master’s in environmental engineering from the University of California at Berkeley (03).
At Berkeley she was a member of the UV-Tube team which developed a low cost UV water treatment system for developing countries and received an EPA P3 Award for their work in rural Mexico. She was also an active member of the Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) group, helped start an ESW class for undergraduates that continues today, and has encouraged and supported numerous engineering students volunteering in Haiti. Also at UC Berkeley, she developed a strong interest in the ideas of Popular Education and Participatory Research, which now guide her technology work in Haiti.
Since 1994, she has been part of the Catholic Worker movement, living and working with the poor and homeless at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality in Rochester, NY (on and off whenever not in Haiti or Berkeley) where she helped provide meals, housing, discussion groups, advocacy, and spiritual support for those in need. In Berkeley, she served on the board of Dorothy Day House Catholic Worker, volunteered with Night on the Streets Catholic Workers to provide mobile meals and breakfasts in the park, and helped to found and run Berkeley’s Foul Weather shelter.
Living the tenets of the Catholic Worker are also central to the work in Haiti: solidarity, hospitality, non-violence, simplicity, and love. She first began volunteering in Haiti with the organization Haiti Outreach Pwoje Espwa (H.O.P.E.) in 1998 and spent about three months a year in Borgne, Haiti working on UV water treatment, solar power, and ecological sanitation projects until 2006 when she helped co-found Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelhoods (SOIL) with Sasha Kramer and Kevin Foos.
); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;">); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;">Kevin Foos is a "human being" from Rochester, NY. He lives in voluntary simplicity at St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, a Catholic Worker House which provides food, clothing, housing, education, and spiritual support in Rochester.
He was a cofounder of Poor People United, a poor people's human rights organization and is affiliated with the national Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. He recently spent 4 months in Borgne, Haiti working on a community development and personal empowerment photography project with teenagers, refurbishing the local "Poor House" to a livable condition, and helping with water and sanitation projects.
); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;">Sasha Kramer (Co-founder SOIL) is an ecologist and human rights advocate who has been working and living in northern Haiti since 2004. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology from Stanford University in 2006. Her dissertation, entitled Nitrogen, Microbes and the Human Predicament: the Ecology and Relevance of Nitrogen Recycling focused on human disturbance of the global nitrogen cycle and its impacts on the earth’s ecosystems.
In 2006 Sasha Co-founded SOIL and completed a postdoctoral research position with the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at Stanford where she coordinated an ecological sanitation project in Haiti in collaboration with Stanford’s Engineers for a Sustainable World and several Departments at Stanford University: Anthropological Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Biological Sciences and the School of Medicine.
Sasha is currently an Adjunct Professor of International Studies and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami, where she teaches an intersession course called Sustainable Development Challenges in Haiti: from Theory to Practice each January in Cap Haitien.. She is also the co-founder of SOL (Sosyete Oganize pou Lanati), a Haitian non-profit dedicated to promoting environmental justice and ecologically sound development
Nadine Mondestin studied social sciences, community economic development and contemporary African dance during an overly lengthy stay in Montreal, Canada and wears multiple hats (translator/interpretor, tech wiz, community arts organizer) at SOIL and elsewhere in Cap-Haitien, Haiti.
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Asenisman ak pwòpwete pou yon anviwònman sen
This booklet offers basic information and learning activities to he...
