Transforming Attitudes: International Coalition Building

Service Learning Courses

Each year we teach field based classes in Cap-Haitien for students from the University of Miami and the University of California Santa Cruz. The intersession course Sustainable Development Challenges in Haiti allows students to move from theory to practice through a combination of readings, lectures, meetings, and direct participation in the construction of an ecological sanitation system.

Discussions take an interdisciplinary look at the connections between poverty, public health and the environment in Haiti. Students will be encouraged to look holistically at environmental and public health problems from a human rights perspective, examining the role that inequality has played in creating and maintaining health and environmental crises in Haiti.

Hosting Visitors

We run a service based visitor’s program to encourage the exchange of knowledge between those educated by the land and those educated in universities. Visitors stay with us at the SOIL house for anywhere from one day to several months, depending on the purpose of their visit. We try to expose our visitors to the beauty and the complexities of Haiti, aspects which are often lost in international news coverage. We believe that international exchange deepens cultural understanding, reducing prejudice.

Facilitation of International Collaborations

 Over the years partner organizations, service learning class participants, and individuals have taken on specific projects. SOIL helps to facilitate these partnerships as part of our mission to connect academics and activists from the US with grassroots organizations in Haiti. A few examples of current projects include:

• A school scholarship program for 50 kids in Shada sponsored by people who have visited Shada from Orlando, California, NY and Canada.

• A weekly health clinic maintained by a partnership between a nurse practitioner in California and a Haitian doctor.

• The University of Minnesota chapter of Engineers Without Borders is working on a mold to transform plastic water bags into improved sandal soles or toilet seats, and indoor dry toilet mold design.

• A master’s student from the University of California at Davis is developing testing protocols and acquiring donated lab equipment so that we will be able to test our ecological toilet’s ability to eliminate harmful microorganisms