Programs: SOIL
Announced:
December 12, 2012
Category:
Addressing Critical, Unmet Needs
Fund Amount: $616,245
Above, SOIL launches its composting toilet program in Cap-Haitien.
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund granted $616,245 to SOIL to expand a sanitation services system in the northern city of Cap-Haitien. With this grant, SOIL is installing and managing 300 toilets that make it possible to transform human waste into valuable fertilizer.
SOIL installs toilets and then collects waste weekly, transporting it to a local waste-treatment site. To fund and ensure sustainability of the program, SOIL collects small user fees from participating households and sells the resulting compost for agriculture and reforestation.
This program is addressing a critical need for sanitation services in a country where cholera and diarrheal diseases are prevalent and improved sanitation facilities are often not.
Why We Invested in SOIL
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's grant to SOIL reflects our commitment to the critical, unmet need for sustainable sanitation services, particularly in rural Haiti.
Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
- Construct 300 household toilets, providing up to 2,250 people with household sanitation services.
- Employ 33 people in the sanitation services sector.
- Mitigate the risk of future outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera.
About Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a US 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. SOIL promotes integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction.
SOIL has been working in some of the poorest areas in Haiti since 2006 to facilitate the community-identified priority of ecological sanitation (EcoSan), where human wastes are converted into valuable compost. EcoSan simultaneously tackles some of Haiti’s toughest challenges: providing improved sanitation to people who would otherwise have no access to a toilet while at the same time producing rich, organic compost which is critical for agriculture and reforestation.
