169 results for author: SOIL Haiti

Meet Yvrose: EkoLakay Coordinator

At SOIL, women’s voices are at the forefront of our work. As a women-led social enterprise, we’re committed to gender equity in livelihood creation and in hiring women in all positions, making a significant effort to recruit female employees. During this Women’s History Month, we are celebrating the members of our staff (and DINEPA) who were selected as 2023 Women in Sanitation by sharing interviews and videos of these current history-makers that we are so proud to work alongside of.  Recently we spoke with Yvrose Pailleur, one of SOIL’s EkoLakay coordinators, about her life and her job and what it’s like to be a woman working in ...

Staff from SOIL and DINEPA Selected as 2023 Women In Sanitation

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)-led Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) initiated their Women in Sanitation campaign in 2020 with the intention of recognizing and celebrating the work of women sanitation professionals, creating a platform to share their stories, and inspiring other women to pursue a career in the field.  We are excited to report that four members of SOIL’s staff Algate Joseph, Yvrose Pailleur, Georgette François and Nazulia Dejoie, along with Edwidge Petit, DINEPA’s Director of Sanitation, were chosen to be featured in the 2023 campaign! TNUSSP will be posting interviews on their website ...

SOIL’S EkoMobil Toilets Provide Sanitation Services at Boulva Naval

Photo Credit: Sakapfet OKAP On February 5th, 12th and 18th the second annual Boulva Naval festivities took place on the boulevard du Cap-Haïtien with the theme: A City, A Youth, A Culture and created an atmosphere of celebration in the city. The event included parades of dancers, acrobats, walking bands and a float carrying a DJ. As Haiti continues battling crisis after crisis — including ongoing insecurity in Port-au-Prince — and the national Kanaval being canceled again this year, residents of cities across Haiti kicked off local carnivals over the past month, eager for a chance to escape from the hardships and stresses they face daily. ...

Envisioning and Planning for the Future

This past month, members of SOIL’s management teams gathered in Cap-Haitien to spend a few days digging into our long-term strategic planning and goals as an organization. The gathering was not only about addressing big questions, but also a wonderful opportunity to connect with one another and get rejuvenated and reaffirmed in our commitment to the work we are doing. This workshop was a rare and welcome opportunity to bring SOIL leadership together under one roof. The team was incredibly excited to have time to work “tèt ansanm” (or “heads together”), as they say in Haiti, especially after such a challenging year. We were also ...

SOIL Grows Through It All

A time-lapse map illustrates SOIL's household service growth from 2014 - 2022 Since its founding in 2007, SOIL has been working to provide regenerative and life-saving sanitation services to meet the vastly unmet need for improved sanitation in Haiti, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas. SOIL’s flagship household service, EkoLakay, was first piloted in Cap-Haitien in 2014, and since this time, has expanded to reach over 2,200 households, providing more than 13,000 people in urban Haiti with safely managed sanitation. Each and every household that joins our service is a milestone for us; and represents one more family that no longer has to ...

SOIL provides dignified sanitation at PapJazz

SOIL's EkoMobil toilets line the Boulevard in Carenage during the Jazz Festival Since 2007 the Port-au-Prince Jazz Festival has welcomed some of the biggest international names in jazz and R&B to Haiti. The Festival was founded in 2007 by the Haiti Jazz Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising the level of the Haitian music industry using jazz music as a tool. The 2023 celebration took place over this past weekend. SOIL was proud to be a part of the festivities by providing our EkoMobil rental toilet service - and, of course, jamming out to the music.  The festival, affectionately nicknamed PapJazz, typically takes place in ...

SOIL Talks Trash (Magic)

Daniel Tillias & Dr. Sasha Kramer with SOIL's compost SOIL’s Executive Director Dr. Sasha Kramer and SOIL Board Co-Chair Daniel Tillias were recently featured on the Trash Magic podcast where they discussed ecological sanitation, recycling human waste into nutrient-rich compost, and empowering local economies in urban Haiti. The podcast, hosted by chemical engineer Oakley Jennings-Fast and waste and recycling expert Sara Fuentes, aims to demystify the circular economy and encourage listeners to ‘change the world one purchase and one piece of trash at a time.’  On the podcast Sasha and Daniel discuss ways that sanitation remains the most ...

Climate Mitigation: SOIL’s continuing partnership with Global Water Intelligence

Each year Global Water Intelligence (GWI) organizes the American Water Summit bringing together policy makers, regulatory and investment communities, and leaders working within the North American water sector to explore technologies, challenge mindsets, and tackle key questions that are vital to channeling action in the water industry. SOIL is thrilled to be partnering once again with GWI to offset the carbon emissions for participants’ travel to the conference.  Our groundbreaking carbon-offset partnership with GWI began last year at the 2022 Global Water Summit after GWI recognized the evidence-based carbon mitigation impact of SOIL’s ...

Renewed hope in the new year and proud reflections of the past year

Members of the SOIL EkoLakay team. It’s the beginning of a new year and the SOIL team is heading into 2023 with renewed hope and mindful optimism. Despite the ongoing political, social & health-related challenges of last year that significantly impacted our staff and our customers, there are also great achievements to celebrate, particularly among the members of our team in Haiti, who, despite the considerable hardships, worked tirelessly and together and didn’t lose hope. We are deeply grateful to each and every one.  In October, when the first new cases of cholera were reported, SOIL sprang into action, understanding that our EkoLakay ...

Sanitation. Dignity. Hope.

Sanitation. Dignity. Hope. Three matters of substance that we here at SOIL use to guide our daily efforts and attention.  As we look back on another challenging year, it is apparent that Haiti’s vulnerable populations are at risk of bearing the greatest burden of the ongoing economic, social, and political instability in the country. It is critical that SOIL continues to expand our service and reach even more households with essential access to sanitation, a basic human right and a life-saving technology, that also provides hope to the families we serve during these difficult times. Sanitation/ Sanitasyon “SOIL is an organization that ...