11th Hour Project Visit

A week and a half ago the lovely visitors from the 11th Hour Project came on an extensive tour to visit our toilet sites, compost site, and farm in northern Haiti. We started off visiting three urban neighborhoods in Cap-Haitien (Shada, Fourgerolle, and Aviation) each with populations between 7,000 – 10,000 inhabitants. The economic situations in these areas is difficult and unstable, with people living in overcrowded houses, surviving with informal sector activities that often yield less than $1 USD per day income. Geographically, these areas are also prone to flooding during big storms, hurricanes, and rising tides.

The 11th Hour visitors visited several of SOIL’s EcoSan toilets in this area where in total we have 3 public toilets, 18 communal toilets, and 130 household toilet systems providing sanitation to an estimated 4,000 people in these communities. Throughout the visit people welcomed us into their homes to show us how well the SOIL EcoSan toilets were working and many people told us they had noticed a decrease in cholera and other water-borne diseases in their community after SOIL started building toilets. We also were pleased to see that the new model of toilets we’re building using more durable materials was holding up well in these challenging conditions.

The 11th Hour team talks with Sasha and Madame Bwa on the edge of the Shada community in Cap-Haitien.

After the toilet tours came the compost site tour, the magic place transforming “waste” into valuable compost ready to use for agricultural purposes. Even though it was a Saturday, we had all staff on board to demonstrate a drum-cleaning and temperature-taking. “This compost looks great!” was the feeling all around. Just in time to see the farm and the ongoing experiments, the baby goats stole everyone’s hearts and that concluded a jam-packed day of site tours. We love to share our work!

More photos from the 11th Hour Visit, including baby goats!, in this SOIL’s Facebook album.

Post written by Emmanuel Antoine and Monika Roy of SOIL’s Cap-Haitien office.