International Action made significant progress in 2017 with its water initiatives in Haiti. In January of 2017, IA purchased a unique drilling machine and shipped it to Haiti. After seven months of red-tape and struggle, the drill was finally released to IA by Haitian Customs. In September, a crew was selected, trained and drilling began. Two things make this new drill unique; it is human-powered, and it is portable.
International Action workers were hands-on when it came to build local distribution systems as well as teaching the community how to care for those systems. We also provide continued support. In addition, we included as-needed chlorine tablets for those systems.
In areas where large drilling rigs cannot go, these systems depended on shallow hand dug wells or local surface water sources to supply the raw water. Given that, IA services were limited to only those communities accessible to the large drill or about 20% of the area.
Because the new drill is powered manually, International Action is providing regular employment to the Haitians supplying the labor for drilling. Over the last six months, our drill team has successfully drilled four wells through the hard rock of Haiti. Given our success, in just the last three months we have received over twenty requests for wells. As word spreads of our ability to drill in heretofore inaccessible locations, we anticipate five to six well requests per month.