Life Giving Force Water Technology for Haiti - Shane Hackett, Co-Founder

What’s the difference between clean water and unclean water? Well, add to that question the fact that someone will be drinking it and you get an unexpected answer: it’s quality of life.

In order to begin to understand what this really means, lets consider two measures used to determine a population’s health liabilities, Years of Life Lost (YLL) and Years Lived with Disability (YLD). These measures are based against something that many in the developed world take for granted: a long, healthy life expectancy.

In many parts of the world however, the difference between how long and healthy a person could live and how long and healthy they do live is staggering, and much of this is due to the absence of a simple resource. Clean water.

Girl carrying water. Port au Prince, Haiti. May 2010

And, as it often is, the young, the immunocompromised and the poor are the one’s most at risk. In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, seemingly simple conditions like diarrhoea, borne from by rotavisruses, bacteria, and parasites in water, alone kills more young children in the developing world than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

The accumulated disability of those who do not die from their disease is equally staggering. Unicef estimates that 443 million school days are lost each year to water-related diseases, and it requires no stretch of the imagination to understand the impact this has on childrens’ education and their future earning potential.

It becomes clear that any approach to assisting the developing world, whether it be primarily ethical, economical, or politically driven, must put the provision of clean water in the central spot. It is the most highly leveraged investment, for any of these concerns,  that can be made in any community that lacks access to it.

Think of this, in many rural and urban areas of the developing world, point-of-use (POU) water-quality interventions can reduce diarrhoea morbidity by more than 40%. It is the single most effective preventative measure, and adds millions of healthy, happier, productive days to the world community. Sadly, while these simple solutions await deployment, very difficult conditions are prevalent and persist in many parts of the world, including Haiti, right now.

Kids with new water bottles. St Dominique's School, Marigot

To address this real need, LGF is on the ground in Haiti, working to ensure that as many children as possible have access to clean water. So that they can attend school regularly, so they gain an education that will build the future of their communities, so that they can experience life free from disease, and so that they can live to be an adult.

We’d love to share some examples of our work that demonstrate the positive impacts of water purification at the source and the benefits it brings to the community.

For instance, the installation of an LGF Rapid Response 10,000UF unit at St Dominique’s school in Marigot. Thanks to the generous contribution from our partners, Providence Haiti, LGF had the opportunity of working with local community leader, Father Luke, who knew only too well what access to clean water would mean for his community. Our system produced the first clean water the community had had since the earthquake and now supports a school of 350 children, many of whom were too sick to attend on a daily basis due to suffering severe dysentery. Within days of our system being installed, these children were back to full health and back to school.

On the same trip in April, we had the pleasure of setting up another one of our LGF Rapid Response 10,000UF units at Cambry orphanage, Les Cayes, and to spend time with the orphans there. It was such a treat. The unit has now been in place for over 4 months and supplies the entire local community with safe, clean drinking water. Prior to the installation, the children were responsible for hauling heavy buckets full of water over a kilometer from a local pump station back to their respective shelters. This was time spent away from school, and time spent in quite heavy labor. The children can now access much cleaner water, much closer to their respective dorms. These may sound like small achievement in the overall scheme of things, but accumulatively over time it is clear that their positive impacts, and that of LGF committing to changing lives in Haiti, will be considerable. We are looking forward to seeing the matured effects.

  Visit Life Giving Force at http://www.Lifegivingforce.com

Rebuilding the Water Infrastructure in Haiti from the Bottom Up. Life Giving Force Co-Founder Shane Hackett

After the January 12 earthquake, aid groups in Haiti have focused, rightfully so, on delivering immediate relief — medicine, medical services, food, shelter, emergency water — to those directly affected by the disaster. These efforts have been admirable and substantial.

The recent cholera outbreak, however, has highlighted the need for long-term potable infrastructure and that emergency water, what aid groups are delivering today, is not sustainable or scalable. Despite the decades of aid and billions now pouring into Haiti, most Haitians do not have access to clean, affordable water. The aid and donor communities need to step up.

But it needs to be done the right way. The right way is NOT to have NGOs provide free water to everyone indefinitely; it’s not sustainable or affordable and does nothing to develop capacity in Haiti. It’s also NOT waiting for the Haitian government to take on a country-wide feasibility study for an infrastructure program.

LifeGivingForce is working with local business people and local leadership (mayors, comité) to setup and run infrastructure for clean, affordable water The infrastructure is run by local businesses and comités in a commercially viable way that makes it sustainable. Donors/NGOs can provide the funding and oversight for the upfront costs of the infrastructure, but Haitians run operations with enough “profit” to make it in everyone’s interest to maintain and grow a system providing clean, affordable water to a much larger proportion of the population that has it now.

For example, in rural areas where there is no clean, affordable water, donors and NGOs can partner with local businesses and local mayors and comités to help finance water purification systems that will last for the next 10-20 years and have the businesses profitably distribute and sell the water at less than 1 gourdes/gallon (currently 1 gourde buys you a small water sachet on the open market). Proceeds from the sale ensure that there is an incentive and the resources to maintain the systems and run manage operations efficiently so that not only is it sustainable, but it will encourage other businesses and local governments to do the same. A mobile phone call costs 1 gourde. Any of you who have been in countryside will see even the poorest owning mobile phones and making calls. 15 goudes/day will allow a family to provide safe, clean water for drinking and cooking (using SPHERE guidelines of 10 liters/person/day for drinking and cooking). This is exactly the model we are deploying now with MINUSTAH-CVR in the SudEst.

In urban slums of Port-au-Prince, 1 gallon of water of dubious quality trucked in from La Plaine sells for 5 gourdes. We can get this down to less than 1 gourde for high quality water, provided through a system operated by local businesses and that requires no trucking. This makes the building and long-term provisioning of water sustainable with an incentive to expand. We are putting a proposal together to do this in the slums of PaP. Eventually, I can see a scalable public-private partnership where equipment is funded by donors, operations are run by businesses based in the slums, and the government regulates the price of water to make it affordable to a population that doesn’t get it now.

There will still be a segment of the population that may not be able to afford even 1 gourde. They can be given vouchers or credits by the NGOs to purchase the quality water from existing vendors once there is enough capacity to provide it. It’s far more efficient that NGOs staffing distribution of free emergency water at high cost forever.

This ground up, market-driven approach to building water infrastructure for everyone may seem slower than a top-down, government-funded approach, but how long have Haitians been waiting for that to happen?

The role of NGOs should be to fund infrastructure setup and oversee programs like the examples above to make it sustainable, scalable, and self-propagating.

The other day I listened to a representative from a NGO on CNN responding to a question about why 9 months after the crisis we’re facing a cholera outbreak. The response was that the group was focused on hygiene and sanitation education. I don’t dispute the importance of that, but telling people that they need to wash their hands and drink clean water when there isn’t anything affordable seems a little disconnected. The response was also indicative of the fact that the majority has been focused on providing temporary aid to those directly affected by the earthquake, not on infrastructure development. That needs to change.

Visit Life Giving Force at http://www.LifeGivingForce.Com

Life Giving Force and Digicel partner in Haiti - Shane Hackett, Co-Founder

Much has been planned for the rebuilding of Haiti after the January 12, 2010 earthquake that devastated the nation. Yet few projects have been so ambitious and so visible as the rebuilding of the Marché en Fer in downtown Port-au-Prince and LifeGivingForce was fortunate enough to play an important role.

Haiti Iron Market - Before reconstruction

Designed in Paris in the 1880s, the Iron Market was originally erected in 1890 during a highpoint in Haiti’s economic history by President Florvil Hyppolite and stood as a symbol of Haitian progress until 2008 when it was partially damaged by fire. During the earthquake of 2010, the remaining structure suffered massive damage, dealing a death blow to 120 years of Haitian history.

Over the last eleven months, the Digicel Group, a Caribbean-based mobile phone company operating in Haiti, has been working to restore the Marché en Fer to its original grandeur. The rebuilding project has been funded and spearheaded by Digicel’s Chairman, Denis O’Brien in a personal capacity and is valued at US$12 million. While the project has remained true to the style of the original edifice, pains have been taken to ensure that the structure is built to international safety standards and equipped with all the needs of a 21st century market. This includes numerous ceiling fans to cool down vendors and patrons, electricity for appliances, and concrete stalls with latticed partitions to hang wares.

Haiti Iron Market - After reconstruction

Perhaps most importantly, LifeGivingForce has teamed with Digicel to provide potable water of the highest standard for the entire market. The system installed can produce up to 20,000 liters of water per day and will be delivered to 14 different access points making clean drinking water accessible to all. Power for the pumps, and for all electricity needs of the market place, will come from a solar array of 533 solar panels producing 108KW of electricity, making it the largest solar array in the Caribbean.

Clean drinking water at Marche en Fer - supplied by LGF

The opening ceremony for the Marché en Fer was held on January 11, 2011. Team LGF were lucky enough to be amongst the attendees at the inauguration where Digicel Chairman, Denis O’Brien, the former US President Bill Clinton and the Mayor of Port-au-Prince, Muscadin Jean-Yves Jason, jointly cut the ceremonial ribbon. It is estimated that over 900 vendors will operate from the new building selling arts and crafts, fruit and vegetables, dry produce and beauty products – many of these had stands in the Iron Market for years prior to last year’s earthquake which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Port-Au-Prince. LifeGivingForce is proud to be a part of this project as it represents a firm commitment to the rebuilding of Haiti and an opportunity for the citizens of downtown Port-au-Prince to gain access to safe, clean drinking water in a place where they live and work. It’s the first major project to come to completion since the earthquake, so many see it as a symbol of the start of reconstruction in Haiti and a beacon of hope. For us, and for all Haitians, we hope this is a harbinger of things to come.

Digicel Marche en Fer inauguration - Team LGF

Life Giving Force in Haiti - Shane Hackett, Co-Founder

On Sunday the 12th of June, 2011, LGF Haiti joined partnersIOM and Green Venues to celebrate the official launch of Haiti’s first joint clean water and recycling initiative in Cite Soleil’s breathtaking community, La Difference.

Self-motivated to create a clean and engaged neighborhood in one of Haiti’s most challenging slums, La Difference celebrated by hosting an afternoon series of spectacular theatrical, musical and dance performances.

Celebratory performance by local dancers

These inspiring young artists channeled a message to promote recycling, cleanliness and water education, and encouraged neighboring communities to do the same.

The ceremony closed with the ribbon cutting of La Difference’s privately-owned potable water kiosk, installed by LGF Haiti.

La Difference Private Potable Water Kiosk, owned and managed by Francois.

And, as members of the community, supporters and friends raised a glass of cold water together, LGF Haiti could not have been more proud to a part of this beautiful initiative.