The MOON: The problem is the SOILution, An interview with Sasha Kramer
“Sasha Kramer is a slight, blonde former New Yorker who got a Ph.D. in ecology from Stanford University in 2006, the same year she co-founded SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods)—a nonprofit headquartered in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. SOIL’s mission is to “promote dignity, health, and sustainable livelihoods through the transformation of wastes into resources.” In other words, composting human wastes to create the rich, black soil that Haiti desperately needs, while eliminating the pathogens and pollution the country doesn’t need. SOIL doesn’t intend to do this for Haitians, but to support them in undertaking this work—as a profitable, self-sustaining enterprise for themselves, or as a model that can be implemented by their government.
Kramer’s work has been honored with many awards, including an Ashoka Changemaker Award, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award, a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and a Land for Life Award from the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Desertification. SOIL has also been written up in the New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, the Huffington Post, Sierra, the BBC, Forbes, and dozens of other publications.
Kramer lives and works in Port-Au-Prince, but travels extensively as a global advocate for the recycling of nutrients in human waste and inspiring people to participate in a “global sanitation revolution.” She recently returned to the States from a conference in Vietnam and spoke with The MOON by phone from New York.” – Leslee Goodman, The MOON magazine, January 2015. Read the full interview here.
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