cité soleil

A reason to give thanks! Clean Water in the city of l'Estère!

Believe it or not, Thanksgiving is two days away. Although it has been a very difficult year for many of us, Thanksgiving Day always offers us an amazing opportunity to reflect and express gratitude for the often-overlooked blessings in our lives. Without a doubt, if you are able to read this newsletter, you are blessed in so many ways. And you may ask, how? According to one of my favorite authors, Anna Quindlen, the answer is very simple; one simply has to realize that life is the best thing ever, and you have no business taking it for granted. The people of Haiti understand this too well.

Dalebrun Esther, our director of operations in Haiti, sent photos along with his update about the situation in Haiti after the earthquake.

I am negotiating with owners of private reservoirs in Cité Soleil. No food or water is available in the worst slum, Cité Soleil. I will focus our work on bringing clean water to Cité Soleil by working with owners of reservoirs in the communities.

International Action is excited to introduce our newest campaign in Haiti. The Campaign for Clean Water for Schools aims to bring clean water to all students enrolled in schools in Cité Soleil, one of the poorest slums in the capital of Port-Au- Prince. The goal of the campaign is clear: bring clean water to students so that they may focus on their education rather than be debilitated by stomach aches and diarrhea caused by dirty, bacteria ridden water. By focusing on their education, they can rise up and overcome the cycle of poverty that they currently exist in.

International Action installed a 2,000-gallon water storage tank at a maternal clinic in the Boston section of Cité Soleil, the most impoverished town in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Our water tank will supply patients at the clinic as well as local residents with clean drinking water. According to the head of the clinic, more than 7,000 people live in the neighborhood. Shelly Chvotzkin – an employee at the clinic – has stated, "This will help us to better care for our patients and have a bigger impact on their lives as well as help us save lives!"

An escalation of violence between rival gangs in Martissant and Grand Ravine has led the IAWater team to reevaluate where they are installing chlorinators. More than forty people were killed and twenty houses burned in ongoing gang fighting. The team has decided to install four chlorinators in Trousable until the security situation in other areas improves. It has also identified several sites for installations: two in the hills above Pétion-ville, one in Delmas 33, one in Cite L'eternal and several in Cité Soleil.

The IAWater team, with a substitute technician standing in for Bastin while he is recuperating, has completed evaluations of water reservoir sites in Jalousie, L'hôpital Fermanthe, Mont Jolie, a school in Cité Soleil, and an orphanage in Kenscoff. The team also evaluated Hôpital St. Catherine's, which is currently staffed by Medicins Sans Frontiers, to assess its feasibility as an installation site. The team will install a chlorinator on each of its two water tanks.

Installation of our chlorinator in Cité Gérard

Cité Gérard is one of the 47 sections of Cité Soleil. Like many of its neighboring communities, the community of Cité Gérard had been in recent years in a state of dramatic violence. Since 2006, the violence has gone down only to be replaced by rampant poverty. In Cité Gérard, insalubrities, famine, low rate of school enrollment, and a very high birth rate all have kept the population in a grave state of misery.