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 fights for people to have access to sustainable sanitation and will not stop until the whole country has sustainable sanitation coverage. The country is so vulnerable that we can’t let our customers down.” – Romel Toussaint, SOIL Senior Manager
Sanitation is our business and our passion. The provision of immediate sanitation access for all is all the more critical given the recent resurgence of cholera in Haiti.
The ongoing and complex humanitarian crisis makes the population of Haiti extremely vulnerable to the current cholera outbreak. The SOIL team continues to collaborate with local authorities to proactively share information with the community about cholera prevention while implementing strategies to rapidly increase the number of in-home toilet installations.
During the past month SOIL installed 224 new in-home toilets, providing an additional 1,334 people access to improved, life-saving sanitation in communities that are very vulnerable to the risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
Dignity/ Diyite
“What really inspires me to keep working is knowing that the communities rely on us to provide a dignified sanitation service. While facing so many problems in the country, it is rewarding to know that we are doing our best to address one of them.” – Sebastien Jabouin Jacques, EkoLakay Manager
As an organization motivated by a mission to increase access to sanitation for vulnerable populations, we firmly believe in the fundamental right to human dignity as a driving force for change. In the absence of dignity we simply cannot drive true change.
The shame and vulnerability that comes with the lack of a dignified sanitation option is never eased or truly normalized. Access to sanitation is not only intricately tied to human dignity, but is also recognized by the United Nations as a human right.
Today and everyday SOIL is proud to be doing this essential work to promote human dignity in the communities we serve in Haiti.
Hope / Espwa
“The EkoLakay service is useful and very important. I can’t imagine how our customers would be able to navigate the protests and insecurity without having access to sanitation.” – Wisner Jean-Louis, SOIL’s Human Resources Director
Working each day towards our vision for a brighter future in Haiti, even in the face of every imaginable hardship, is an expression of profound hope. To remain hopeful in bad times is based on the reality that human history is not only a history of despair, but also one of compassion, courage, kindness and love.
Haiti’s history is complex, one punctuated by profound injustice and setbacks, and while it is imperative to acknowledge and work to amend that fact, SOIL will continue to choose to emphasize the times and places when people behave magnificently; holding up our staff members who live their lives on the front lines of the struggle, celebrating members of our team who are always finding new and innovative ways to expand our service amid ever intensifying complications, and appreciating our longtime donors and supporters who walk with us, providing critical financial support and helping to spread the word about the work we do. To live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad, is itself a powerful source of hope.
This kind of hope gives us the energy to act, even in some small way, and the aggregate of all those small acts of kindness, of magnanimity, is the very thing that can change the world. Undoing centuries of inequality is a lifetime commitment, it requires a dedication that takes strength in small victories and the tenacity to persist, to be hopeful, even in the face of immeasurable setbacks.
It is our hope that the world will support Haiti in its endeavor to recreate itself as a country freed to reach its full potential through local innovation and agency. We will never stop imagining a brighter, greener future for the country that we so love.
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