Accomplishments of Haiti Outreach
April 2015
While you can read about the details of our accomplishments in the copies of our annual reports and newsletters, which are available under the About Us/Publications section of the website, here is a list that summarizes what we have accomplished since Haiti Outreach began in the Fall of 1997.
Since that time, Haiti Outreach has:
• Raised over $12 million for our community development work in Haiti
• Created community wells and clean water projects for an estimated 190,000 people, including on the water-deprived island of La Gonave
• Set a record 55 community managed wells created in one year in 2014
• In the past 7 years, 95% of our community wells are still functioning, compared to about 50% nationwide
• Have increased our success rate in having latrines built to 95% of homes in communities where we have conducted sanitation eduction
• Built four public schools and one major school addition
• Brought the Haitian micro-lending bank Fonkoze to the town of Pignon, where it has lent around $1 million to poor women to help them create or grow their businesses with a very high payback record
• Hauled life-saving water in 2004 and again in 2008 to stranded people in the city of Gonaives after disastrous floods brought on by massive hurricanes
• Repaired the municipal water system of Gonaives twice after the destruction caused by those same hurricanes
• Repaired eight large irrigations wells near Gonavies and updated the electrical controls for 20 more
• Performed miles of road repair
• Built 20 homes along with the Haitian people for needy families that the local community groups select
• Brought over 350 people on a trip to Haiti to help with small work projects, see our community development projects firsthand and experience the people and culture of Haiti
• Created a partnership from 2008 – 2011 with the engineering students at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. They designed and implemented two major projects and designed a third.
• Created an intern program of college students or recent graduates from the U.S. who spend a year interning with Haiti Outreach in Pignon
• Purchased land and built our own headquarters building to house our offices, provide shop space to store items and make repairs, and provide a yard for our vehicles
• Built our own Guest House on our property in Pignon to house our many travelers and other individuals and groups visiting the Pignon area
• Participated in earthquake relief after January 12, 2010.
• Have worked with and enrolled DINEPA, the department of the national government responsible for potable water and sanitation, in declaring that all public wells and water systems in Haiti must have a program, like ours, for sustaining and managing these systems by the local Haitian communities and under DINEPA’s authority.
• Started a new 100 community well initiative in the Department of the Northeast in coordination with DINEPA. For the first time, we are training DINEPA staff to become familiar with our management training system in order for them to become the inspectors who will follow up with the communities once the wells are completed. We have always done that ourselves in the past. This is a big breakthrough in having the government step up their participation and responsibility for these community wells.
• Conducted a leadership training program that included our employees and DINEPA employees, among others, that lead to increasing responsibility and productivity on the part of both groups
