Thursday, January 3, 2008- Project Pierre Toussaint, SOL project toilets, Cry for Freedom

According to my observations and personal intake of the organization I believe Project Pierre Toussaint (PPT) to be an innovative outreach center for young street children that have no one really to care for them located in Cap Haitien. A man by the first name of Douglas is the founder and acting director of the organization, who graciously picked up the intern participants of SOL and transported us to the residential site for the young boys. The site is very inspirational and meets most of the practical needs of the residents. On site is a trade house where they can learn wielding, sewing, and mechanical maintenance. These trades are important for those that are neither really receptive nor apt to the Haitian schooling system which is primarily in French. There was also the launching of a project to build an onsite primary school.

There is a lack of certified teachers and educators in this country. Many of those in the profession of enriching the minds of the young have very limited to no training at all, or degrees in education. This further hinders the intellectual growth of the youth and continues this cycle of mis/education. I am optimistic of a future where there can be incentives for many of the educated Haitian diaspora and many of the exported intellectuals to return and have a hand in the changes that can be made in the education, health, sanitation, infrastructure, and many more systems in Haiti. This brain drain has really caused some unrecoverable consequences on those that live on the island. The population is overwhelmingly young, and do not have the privilege of attending school. What kind of future is at stake with an aging, undereducated population? And yet so many people of Haitian decent in the United States, France, Canada, and elsewhere have degrees and certifications ranging from registered nurses to teaching.

At PPT, I saw my first dry toilet. The idea is actually quite ingenious, where two chambers are kept for each type of human excrement and later used as fertilizer and compost. It like facilitates the cycle of life where nutrients are lost from the body but reused in soil fertilizer to grow crops to nourish the body. A major issue that I find with this idea is the concept of how to make this something that is sustainable and able to perpetuate itself without the aid the founders of the initiative. Kevin, the co-founder of SOL, mentioned the goal is the have the idea become a for profit business incentive for entrepreneurs when the positive causal effects of using human excrement (which is abundant and easily accessible and contained) fertilizer are recognized. From this, the project theoretically should take a mind of its own. As a great example, SOL built a toilet in a community and the municipal government there felt it to be such a positive contribution that they have decided to have ten more toilets built there after the first one was destroyed. This case example is advantageous for community members. The toilets do not smell bad like most public toilets and are easily maintained. Additionally the benefits of using composts in gardens are endless. The return in crop growth and then selling agricultural products in the market can make a real difference.

Despite all of the positives I feel that the likelihood widespread adoption of this in the near future leaves me a bit clouded. I feel that this may take years to decades, which I do not find to surprising in order for real development projects to become a stronghold in any community/nation. Primarily in order to create commerce would possibly require that the first years of entrepreneurial businesses ventures be subsidized for the first couple of years until the back products and its benefits are presentable. As a start-up organization I do not think that the resources to do this will not be available until much later. Also much educational outreach I feel will be needed for the population to understand the benefits that these toilets ultimately have on the economic well being of communities. That usually is the number one problem for nonprofit organizations: an endless list of demands and activities that need to be done with a limited amount of resources. What augments this lack of funds even more is that grant proposals are municipal requests and many of the monies come from Port-au-Prince. There is a lot pressure felt by the Haitian government to support and fund programs for sanitation purposes because of a widely publicized $5 million foreign aid assistance, but that money has not made it yet and unfortunately not available to the different departments.

I enjoyed a great film this evening starring Denzel Washington who is THE handsomest actor I should shamelessly add. It’s called Cry Freedom. There were many similarities in the movie and the situation here in Haiti about a suffering disenfranchised people. Both are countries of blacks run by a small white minority. I enjoyed the movie because it talked about how institutionalized repression and racism continues the cycle of poverty and marginalization of many black nations where “whether smart or dumb, he is born to stay in the condition he is in.” True, education is the greatest equalizer, but education is not something easily accessible and is something often “given” to marginalized communities with a paternalistic intent or afforded to minorities through organizations in the form of scholarships that cannot reach as many people as they wish they could. Something I did not like about the movie was that I felt the majority of it was not spent on conveying the message of freedom and respect of human rights, but rather more of a sensationalized escape epic for a journalist. The story of the murdered black activist was confined to a short part of the movie.