1,500 Clean Cookstoves for Haitian Families

Hello Friends,

It has been one year since the devastating 7.0 earthquake rocked the country of Haiti, killing some 230,000 people and displacing another 1 million. Trees, Water & People (TWP) is reflecting on the past year in Haiti and looking forward to the future.

In the weeks and months following the earthquake, and continuing through the end of 2010, TWP received a tremendous outpouring of support for our efforts in Haiti. Now, we would like to share with you how these generous donations have made a real and lasting impact, as well as our plans for 2011.

2010 Accomplishments in Haiti 

With our partners Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT), International Lifeline Fund (ILF) and StoveTec, we were able to distribute thousands of fuel-efficient Rocket cookstoves to internally displaced Haitians. The following summarizes our impact in the past year:

• Distributed 2,798 fuel-efficient cookstoves to Haitian families, directly affecting over 16,500 lives (with an average family size of 6 people). These cookstoves greatly reduce fuel costs, deforestation, environmental impacts, and injuries due to open-fire cooking. In addition, with a great need for clean water, these cookstoves allow families to prepare food safely, and boil water to reduce deadly water borne diseases such as Cholera.
• With our partner ILF, we were able to train cookstove beneficiaries. Every training session included an overview of the stove parts, stove use and maintenance, and the environmental, economic and social benefits of a fuel-efficient cookstove. Trainees also participated in a cooking demonstration, where each woman cooked a meal on their new cookstove.
• In addition to distribution and training, TWP and ILF have done extensive monitoring and evaluation of the cookstoves distributed. These stoves have been very well received due to the fuel-savings and safer cooking conditions they offer. In fact, through the monitoring and evaluation program, we have found that beneficiaries save over 50% on their average daily fuel expenditures with their new cookstove. As one woman commented:

“With my stove, I am able to purchase less charcoal and I help protect the environment….the stove program is helping us to rebuild our country so that Haiti can be more beautiful than before the earthquake.”

• We funded our partner AMURT’s installation of the Integrated Healing and Wellness Center (IHEC) at the SINEAS Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Port-au-Prince. The IHEC consists of 11 pavilions and 22 classrooms, 10 composting toilets, 8 rainwater catchment systems, a reservoir, a composting site, a tree nursery, a permaculture demonstration site and organic garden. These child-friendly spaces gave 820 children the chance to attend preschool and after school programs, providing an important safe haven during a time of crisis. The vision for this center is that it can be replicated in other camps, with youth and women's leadership as a main priority.
• Working with the Haitian government, we participated in drafting the Haitian National Improved Stove Strategy with our partners from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Paradigm Project, and ILF. Working with the Haitian government’s Bureau of Mines and Energy (BME), we will continue to address the problems of deforestation caused mainly by charcoal production and fuel-wood consumption.
• In 2010, TWP became a partner of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the GACC in New York City in September with a commitment to saving lives, improving livelihoods, empowering women, and combating climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean cookstoves. Since the launch, the Alliance has been working on activities that will help them achieve the goal of 100 million homes adopting clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020.  Our international staff will be participating in two working groups for the GACC: "Reaching Consumers" and "Monitoring and Evaluation."

Moving Forward in Haiti: 2011 Plans

• Working with AMURT, who runs multiple tree nurseries throughout Haiti, we will continue to address the critical deforestation issue in Haiti. According to the Haitian Bureau of Mines and Energy, 75% of the energy consumed in Haiti comes from biomass in the form of wood and charcoal; 80% of this amount is used for cooking meals at the household level. Halting the severe deforestation in the country is a critical task, as the current rate of reforestation is only 26% of the rate of forest removal.
• In 2011, with our partner organizations, we will undertake extensive research and development to continue the process of designing a best-fit cookstove for Haiti that can be produced in country, by Haitians, using local materials with an end-product that is economically accessible to those most in need. 

With your continued support, TWP and partners will also continue the distribution of fuel-efficient cookstoves, as well as the training, monitoring, and evaluation process that is critical to the success of this program.

Thank you so much for your support of this project and your compassion for the Haitian people!

Links:

• "On the Road Series: Haiti One Year Later"

I’d call on everybody to keep their eyes and thoughts on Haiti in the coming weeks, and to think of ways forward as the country prepares itself for the era that will see them either emerge as a functional democracy, or remain buried mentally and physically in the rubble of the past several decades.

This quote from a recent NY Times Editorial (Nov. 30, 2010) titled “Haiti After the Vote,” describes the recent presidential elections and speaks to many of the challenges facing the incoming government (whomever that may be):

“Eleven months after the devastating earthquake, more than a million people are still displaced. The country is also struggling to contain a cholera epidemic. The new government will have to clear the many roadblocks that have slowed the rebuilding effort. And it will have to tackle a host of other reforms: modernizing the electoral system and constitution; unclogging bureaucracies and legal requirements that stifle business and investment; overhauling cruel and ineffective courts and prisons.”

I would add one point to the above list of challenges that face the incoming Haitian government – and would, after 6 years of working in Central America and the Caribbean, extend this critique to all the countries in the region. My thoughts stem from a trip I took a week before the elections, from the rural, arid northwest of Haiti back to the capital, during which we crossed paths with a convoy of at least 10 United Nations (UN) amphibious tanks and trucks, armed to the teeth, presumably heading to Cap Haitien.

We were in Cap Haitien until four days prior, and got out just before people started rioting against the UN based on the allegation that the current cholera strain was brought in by their troops, from abroad. I knew that whatever was going on that week would pale to the chaos brought on by a general election between 18 candidates, and the after effects of this contest, that are sure to continue over several weeks.

So amidst the accusations of electoral fraud, stalling on durable solutions in the reconstruction, UN irresponsibility and an intensely dangerous cholera epidemic with dubious origins, lies an issue which receives relatively little attention, but which will be instrumental in creating a prosperous Haitian society, if there were ever to be one. The origins of the cholera that has currently has Haiti over a barrel are secondary when you ignore the factors that have allowed it to proliferate – an abysmal disregard for sanitation and hygiene throughout the country, and no waste management systems that would provide an alternative to current practice. In truth, nobody should be pointing fingers when there are crises like this afoot, but I look at the situation more objectively.

If the earthquake had never happened, Haitians would still be living among open sewers, defecating in waterways and throwing Styrofoam and plastic into clogged drainage channels, with no concern for the consequences… and the world would be perfectly content to ignore it. The cholera may have been brought from abroad, but I’m sure the conditions for its proliferation have been ripe for decades, as they are in many developing-world cities.

I see epidemics like these as eventually inevitable, given the conditions, and this outbreak in Haiti should catalyze a serious global conversation on waste, the burden of responsibility that exists upon both the producers and consumers of things that become waste, and most importantly human waste.

We “first-worlders” are subject to this scrutiny as well, as we find it more than acceptable to ignore the destination of our disposables, and are more than comfortable sullying perfectly potable water (an increasingly scarce commodity) on a daily basis. But until we feel just as comfortable discussing the matter as we do flushing and throwing things “away”, we’ll keep running into epidemics such as this one, and perhaps even worse ones that come from the burning, burying and floating of non-biodegradable and chemical waste into the world’s sinks.

As cholera in Haiti, the recent petroleum disaster in the Gulf, the recent toxic spills in Hungary and so many other environmental disasters have shown us, we reap what we sow, folks. It’s time we face the fact that we have to learn to manage what we consume, where it comes from, and most importantly recognize what that consumption leaves behind. Let’s make the effort to reduce our share of non-biodegradable products in the waste-stream, and to make this a topic of conversation among families and friends as Haiti turns the page and begins this hopeful new era.