The past two weeks, Gaby Vincent of Sonje Ayiti has been hosting a team who have been doing water testing in the region. Compatible Technologies International design food and water technologies appropriate to low-income countries as a sustainable method of improving the quality of lives. They have previously worked with Meds and Food for Kids to provide their small scale factory equipment, and with Sonje Ayiti with their cocoa grinding equipment. Their latest project has been to design an innovative water purification system, which engineer students of St Thomas’ University in Minnesota designed, and with their professor, came out to Cap Haitien to test. The Water ‘Aqualyser’ uses electrolysed metal plates to convert salt into chlorine, which kills bacteria and harmful pathogens commonly present in untreated drinking water. Their prototype includes a foot pedal to create enough energy to generate the electricity.
The aims of their trip to Cap Haitien were to test out their prototype, and to think about ways they can improve it to make it more appropriate to the local environment and culture. One step of this process was to gain water samples from across the region to find out how prevalent e-coli is, and test the prototype on some of the most contaminated areas.
The network assisted them by enabling all the in-country water NGOs to collaborate. During a meeting held on CTI’s first day, they were able to discuss their prototype and get essential feedback on what design would be sensitive to the region. For example, if it were able to be attached to the end of a hand pump it would be accessible to almost any community, a huge leap from any other purification or filtration system used in Haiti today. They were also given a list of sites that are likely to contain e-coli, such as Limonade and Shada, which they used to plan their water testing.
Susan and Doug Rakoczy of Life Water Canada, Life Water OMS and Global Hope also donated an incubator to the team to help with their water testing, and CTI gave the couple support on how to use the incubator as they are new to water testing.
For the network, CTIs work will give us vital information to prioritise needs of water systems in the north of Haiti. Where a presence of e-coli is shown in untreated drinking water, NGOs such as SIFAT, World Water Missions and Fountains of Hope, who already have purification systems, can be directed to help.
The network took the CTI team to Notre Dame des Lourdes Clinic and School in Cap Haitien, where, if there is a presence of e-coli found in their water, SIFAT will install a water purification system. We also took them to Shada where they tested four shallow wells, with the guidance of Madame Bwa the community leader, and Ashley Dahlberg from SOIL.
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