SIFAT Water Treatment being brought to Northern Haiti

SIFAT is an organisation involved in sustainable development across 80 countries. Since the earthquake they have been working to improve the accessibility of clean water in various parts of Haiti. They have, however, just started working in the north region, and have asked the network to help them locate the communities and facilities most in need of water treatment.

'Cowboy', from SIFAT, Cameron from Bahamas Habit (a partner of SIFAT), and I visited Shada on Wednesday as a potential community to help. Madame Bwa showed us an example of a well: less than 10 foot deep, a stack of dirty car tyres used to maintain the hole (pictured). She explained that the majority of people use this water only for showering and washing clothes. However, a lot of people cannot afford the 5 goudes for a gallon of treated water so are forced to drink from this source.

This afternoon we attended the WASH cluster meeting in order for SIFAT to promote their technology to the big WASH players of the north. MSPP, Konbit Sante, MSF (for potential use in their health facilities and to link with their health promotion agents), amongst others, all showed much interest in partnering with SIFAT to provide quick access to clean water. Cowboy will be meeting with the MSPP tomorrow to discuss this work further and has set up other contacts to help when they return in a couple of weeks.

It was a pleasure to be in a position to easily link SIFAT with the relevant people and organisations to maxime their capabilities in providing access to clean water to the north of Haiti - throughout towns and in deep rural localities.

SIFAT will also be coming with a team called 'Floating Doctors' and will be primarily able to serve the remote, coastal communities. They hope to be in Haiti by the end of the month.

Hannah Steadman
Cap Haitien Health Network
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