SOIL and IAF Meet Up in Fort Bourgeois
IAF staff and grantees with SOIL’s Sadouddly Michael-Lambert
SOIL was excited to have the opportunity to meet with staff members from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) last month in Cap-Haitien. IAF is an independent US foreign assistance organization that invests in community-led grassroots development across Latin America and the Caribbean. Their work is focused on engaging local leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs in underserved areas to create more prosperous, peaceful and democratic communities.
IAF has been funding projects in Haiti since 1975 and currently have grantees in 9 of the country’s 10 departments. IAF’s grants are awarded to small, often rural organizations like civil society groups and farming cooperatives that don’t traditionally receive a lot of funding. IAF grantees manage their own resources and make their own decisions to help them develop capacity to find solutions and innovate for themselves, but are encouraged to partner with local private sector companies and foundations to broaden and amplify their community impact.
SOIL’s Waste Treatment Manager, Sadouddly Michael-Lambert, met up with the group, which included IAF staff and grantees, in Ft Bourgeois to speak with them about SOIL’s work, EkoLakay toilets and services, and our compost. Sadouddly demonstrated and explained how SOIL toilets work and brought along some Konpòs Lakay for the group to touch and smell.
Caroline Cordona, Foundation Representative for Haiti & the DR, said that the audience was enthusiastic about SOIL’s work and engaged in the demonstration. “Kudos for KaKa Kapab!”, she said. “People were buzzing with this and it generated lots of interest and discussion.”
We’re always excited to share our work and passion for a sanitation solution in urban Haiti with others and were so glad that we were able to meet up with the group from IAF. In the coming months IAF and SOIL will continue to explore ways for the two organizations to collaborate with a possible IAF grantee visit to the SOIL work sites and brainstorming ways that SOIL’s Konpòs Lakay could be used by IAF farming coops to help support their agroforestry and farming projects.