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Haiti struggles with the lack of clean water and sanitation

By Priscila Azevedo Rocha and Francisca Stuardo from Haiti

On the 12th of January 2010 the earth moved in Haiti – leaving the capital Port-au-Prince and its surroundings razed to the ground. After only 30 seconds the air was filled with concrete and dust. Entire buildings collapsed, roads were cut and the poorly designed sewage system damaged due to the lack of earthquake-resistant structures, leaving 1.5 million people homeless. The affected families were displaced to nearby cities and now, five years later, they still struggle to have access to clean water and basic sanitation.

According to the NGO water.org, 40 per cent of the 10,604 million living on the island lack access to clean water and only one in five people have access to a sanitary toilet, making the water supply and sanitation of the country the worst in the Americas. The NGO goes further by stating that the problem is not the availability of resources, since Haitians today only have access to one per cent of the groundwater potential from mountain areas, but rather the lack of treatment facilities and proper sewage connections for the remaining 99 per cent. To put those numbers into perspective, the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, which is a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), estimated in a report that the use of water sources and sanitation facilities is worse now than five years ago. Drinking water coverage that less than half of the population had access to, fell on average by ten per cent, depending on the source that can be either piped into premises or surface water.

The lack of access to water became even more alarming when the country endured an outburst of cholera months after the natural disaster that still persists, killing 9,225 until December 2014. The most affected areas are located in the outskirts of the capital where the displaced Haitians moved longing for a fresh start. For them, cholera has become a constant fear because they mostly rely on agriculture for their subsistence and the water that they use for irrigation is most likely to be contaminated.  Just walking on the streets of Onaville – one of the five communities where the NGO Techo works developing integration programs – the necessity for water is evident. “The main problem here is that there is no water and to buy a bucket it costs 5 gourdes (0.07 pounds), which is very expensive for us”, said local resident Frandy Derisima.

In order to address the problem, Techo developed a stabilization program that consists of the education and promotion of sanitary conditions and how they are related to the spread of diseases transmitted through water, such as cholera, by both local and international volunteers. This campaign envisions the decrease in mortality rates and morbidity in the communities of Onaville, La Digue, La Hatt, Royal and Gariche Prince, located on an average ratio of 40 km from the capital, where water is a primary matter of concern. The volunteers are working daily at the locations, handling flyers and outdoor posters to generate awareness in the population. But, most importantly, they are conducting collective activities with school children to develop awareness of hygiene practices – like brushing their teeth and constantly washing their hands – from a young age.

Those self-care practices have reached up to 5,762 people in all of the five communities together and in total, cost 70,000 pounds that covered material, brochures and transportation of the volunteers, which Techo is responsible for fundraising. Hygiene and education practices are indeed very important measures to contain the outburst of diseases spread through water and projects like the stabilization program should increase. Nevertheless, those are only temporary solutions to the lack of sanitation and access to clean water. The results can only be measured in the long run and they do not address the immediate need that the country has for potable water access. According to the World Bank country overview, more than 30 people are still infected every day and water borne diseases remain one of the leading causes of infant and child mortality.

Five years after the earthquake there is still a lot to be done in the Caribbean island. As the Haitian proverb says, “beyond mountains there are mountains”, meaning that after solving one problem, there will always be another one. Therefore, despite all the effort from both non-profit and international organizations to win the battle against poverty, the lack of clean and pure water is distressing. In order to change the scenario, immediate structural changes are needed and the international community must take the lack of sanitation as the most fundamental step towards reconstructing the country.

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