SOIL Letters: From Shada to SOIL's Supporters

[box type=”shadow”]SOIL Letters is a blog series featuring some of the beautiful letters we’ve received over the years in support of the work we’re doing in Haiti.[/box] Dear Friends,

Many of you who have supported us through the years are familiar with the community of Shada. Some of you may have even been lucky enough to visit and meet some of our amazing friends and colleagues there who are working tirelessly to create change in their community. Shada is home to over 1,200 families, covering about 2.5 square kilometers of land along the river that passes through Cap Haitien. Sanitation coverage is almost non-existent and the community is subject to frequent flooding. SOIL has been inspired by the resilience, kindness and dedication of this community for nearly 7 years, and it has truly been a pleasure to work with them.

Below is a letter from KÒSS, a recently formed committee of representatives of 9 community organizations in Shada, with whom SOIL has been working closely to pilot our household toilet project. With their help we have been able to provide household sanitation to 133 families over the past 2 months. We thank all of you who have supported SOIL for making this sort of collaboration possible. They asked that we share this letter with you…

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Cap-Haitien, 16 November 2012

From: Organization KÒSS
To: SOIL and its donors
Purpose: Acknowledgements

KÒSS (Coordinating Organization to work with SOIL in Shada) speaks with the voice of the population of Shada to greet all staff and supporters of SOIL with the most beautiful greeting that exists.

For many years the people of Shada, Cap-Haitien have lived with a great number of difficulties such as public health problems, lack of infrastructure and too many more problems to list, but with interventions from organizations, most significantly SOIL, Shada has experienced a great improvement.

For this reason, the nine community-based organizations that form KÒSS, together with the entire population of Shada, come together today to wish you an enormous thank you (“Ayibobo!”)* for the wonderful work SOIL is doing in the community and to say that we hope that SOIL will continue to work in this region of Haiti and we hope that all who support SOIL will continue to help them to help us improve our region.

Monsieur/Madame, SOIL representatives and SOIL donors, in addition to saying thank you, we also wish to present you with our most distinguished greeting.

Thank you so much (Mesi anpil),
The members of KÒSS

 

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* “Ayibobo” is an expression within Vodoun culture akin to the English “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!”

Original – In Haitian Creole

[gview file=”https://www.oursoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Let-KOSS-pou-SOIL.pdf”]

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