Haiti Outreach’s 100 Community Well Project is in its second year, focused on the Nord-Est Department of Haiti. An important component of each community managed well is the community education and training on sanitation and hygiene. This education and training is conducted before and after the well drilling, as we see it as a key piece to the long-term sustainability and management of their well and to having a healthy community.
In the Nord-Est Department, several communities near the city of Ouanaminthe have begun their well management training programs. In order to assess the number of people that would be impacted by a community well, the newly formed volunteer well management committee of Kontre walked from house to house to perform a required census, finding 229 people living among their 42 houses. During this census, Kontre’s well management committee discovered that 22 of the 42 households did not have appropriate latrines. Without a latrine, they have to go to the bathroom out in the open. Sharing what they had learned regarding the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene, the committee helped these families without latrines recognize how latrines benefit their family and the community’s general health, as well as help lower the risk of contaminating their water supply.
Kontre’s well management committee now proudly reports that already 16 of those 22 family homes have dug new latrines. Only 6 more houses to go in order for all of their homes to have their own latrine!
