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Warning: fopen(/home/odhktmrn/public_html/components/com_jd-wp/wp-content/cache/wp_cache_mutex.lock) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/odhktmrn/public_html/components/com_jd-wp/wp-content/plugins/wp-cache/wp-cache-phase2.php on line 94 AIDG Blog [Appropriate Technology, Development, Environment]AIDG Blog Interviews: Manuel Aguilar - Quetsolby Peter HaasAugust 16th, 2011
Download: MP3 Summary: AIDG Blog interviews Quetsol founder Manuel Aguilar about bringing light to Guatemala, financing for his customers and enterprise, the impact his company has, and being a TED Global Fellow. Photos
Related: Quetsol Founder Manuel Aguilar named a 2011 TED Global Fellow
QUETSOL - english version from Rancho Aparte on Vimeo. Quetsol Interviewed by Energy Entrepreneurs AIDG Blog Interviews: Donald Stevens - Shelter 2 Homeby Peter HaasAugust 2nd, 2011
Download: MP3 Summary: AIDG Blog interviews Donald Stevens of Shelter 2 Home about the Build Back Better Communities Expo, the growth of his company, and the housing sector in Haiti Photos From the Expo
Related: 10 things I learned from being in Haiti during the earthquakeby Catherine LaineFebruary 9th, 2010 1. Everything I learned about how to react during an earthquake from growing up in California does not apply in developing countries. Forget standing in the doorway. Get outside and get outside fast.  Apartment Building on Delmas 33  Partially Collapsed building on Delmas 33  2. You can be in an impromptu IDP camp, your world can be turned upside down, but if your family is safe, you still can find happiness.  We (Marc Orel, Sasha Kramer, Wisnel Jolissaint, Paul Christian and myself) drove down to Port-au-Prince from Cap a few days after the quake. Our second stop after dropping off our things at Matthew 25 house and picking up our friends Elie and Berto was Jacquet where we found Marc Orel’s family all safely accounted for. 3. Humanitarian responses are far more chaotic then you would ever believe and logisticians are totally underappreciated.  A chaotic health cluster meeting at MINISTAH Log Base  In the early stages of the humanitarian responses, aid workers crowded in this room to get reasonable high-speed internet access. Télécoms Sans Frontières were responsible for setting up the internet. 4. Stories of looting and violence however rare are news. Stories of people banding together to help their communities however common are human interest pieces. TV news by design does not show a representative sample of life on the ground. It only shows what reporters think will maintain viewer interest and ratings with far too little regard of the larger scale effects that such practices will have on society at large.  Inside St Claire’s soup kitchen. After hearing so much about the trouble the larger agencies and NGOs were having with large scale food distributions, Sasha and I were very surprised when we visited this well organized and peaceful soup kitchen at St Claire. This feeding program, which has been in operation for 9 years, has been serving 2,500 to 5,000 people a day since the earthquake, according to Lavarice Gaudin. Though Father Gerard Jean Juste, a strong advocate of liberation theology who headed the church, passed last May, his staff and partners try to “carry on his legacy” of serving the poor.  Community members unload food to be distributed to sick patients and IDPs in soccer field behind Matthew 25 House.  Photo by Elie Happel 5. Music, art, and play are more important in crisis situations than people fully acknowledge. It takes more that food and water to nourish the human spirit.  Our friend Rosemond Jolissaint, serenades a small crowds before he and friends and family members are evacauted to Cap Haitien from Pap. (I’ll try to post an mp3 of my favorite song of his later).  Girl jumping rope at St Claire 6. People will allow you to take their photograph even when in despair if they think the story of their pain will help others or serve the greater good.  Mother and child at the field hospital at MINUSTAH logbase 7. There is no UN agency charged to deal with engineering issues before and after disasters in the same way that say the World Food Program or the World Health Organization deal with food and health respectively. [Update: After of a few months of scrambling in Haiti, UNOPS has now taken the lead and is helping the government perform 1000’s of structural assessments.]  Engineering team inspects Matthew 25 House  Part of AIDG’s response to the crisis has been to recruit earthquake and structural engineers to assess buildings on the ground in Port-au-Prince. The 2 teams, one fielded in close cooperation with the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the University of Buffalo, assessed nearly 200 government buildings, schools, orphanages, residences and food distribution warehouses during their stay in Port-au-Prince. Above MCEER’s director, Andre Filiatrault, inspects the collapsed Ministry of Justice to determine whether it is safe enough to enter the basement to extract important legal records. I’ll be writing a lot more about these fantastic engineers in future posts. 8. You can ride in the back of a pickup in the middle of Champ Mars and not get mobbed or shot at or caught in a riot. I’m talking to you CNN. Their reporting, which largely misrepresented the situation here, is a big reason why some teams of foreign American doctors are not allowed outside the gates of the General Hospital without escort.  Dr Steven Keller in the back of the SOIL truck on his way to a community hospital. 9. Fate has a sick sense of humor.  The Petionville Club. Private Club. Members Only  Internally displaced persons camp at the Petionville Golf, Tennis and Country Club. 10. Even when the apocalypse comes, life goes on…  Having a friend braid your hair and on…  Friends in Cap: Magistrat Jhonny Estimable (Mayor or Borgne and brother of AIDG’s Edline Estimable), Tony (SOIL), Paul Christian Namphy (SOIL, Oxfam), Marc Orel (SOIL), and ? and on.  Waiting for a tap tap AIDG Micro-Hydroelectric Intern: Will Stone [Video]by Catherine LaineDecember 21st, 2009 Duration: 1 min 33 sec AIDG Micro-Hydroelectric Intern Will Stone talks about his work with us in Guatemala. Will assisted in the upgrade of a Pelton Turbine at the Nueva Alianza community and designed a Mitchell Banki Turbine for use at the Corazon del Bosque ecopark. Recorded Nov 2009. Related Posts Photos: Miami Herald Haiti coverage in 2008 wins Pulitzer for Breaking News Photographyby Catherine LaineApril 25th, 2009 This year’s Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography went to Miami Herald’s Patrick Farrell for his coverage of Haiti in 2008. His award winning photo-essay, “A People in Despair: Haiti’s year without mercy“, documents some of Haiti’s most brutal struggles. 4 of the 20 images that make up the photo-essay.  Deforested mountains funneled Tropical Storm Hannah’s rainfall directly into Gonaives, flooding the town of 350,000  Frantz Samedi holds the lifeless body of his 5 year old daughter, Tamasha Jean, who died when Hurricane Ike’s flood waters swept children and the elderly from their homes in the small Haitian town of Cabaret  Shadows of children dance across a small tent city - temporary shelter for homeless families - in Cabaret  Mardoshe Thelisma cries at a funeral mass for her cousin and 90 others, who were crushed to death when the 3 story College La Promesse collapsed in Petionville outside Port-au-Prince View the slideshow and listen to Farrell’s commentary. His voice quavers with the emotion of the experience. [Miami Herald] Some Photos from IDDS 2008by Catherine LaineJuly 30th, 2008 I stopped by MIT last week to see how the International Design Summit was going. Here is some photos I captured during my visit. 
For more information check out IDDS’ great blog. I also took some video but haven’t had the chance to edit it yet. Soon, soon. Related Posts: State-of-the-Art Facilities: 1941 [Shorpy, 100 year old Photo Blog]by Catherine LaineJuly 25th, 2008 
via Shorpy Related Posts: Urine-Diverting (Dry) Toilet [Shada, Haiti] Pt 2by Catherine LaineApril 10th, 2008  At the end of March, we and our community partner, SOIL, finished 2 urine-diverting dry toilets (a.k.a. ecosan toilets) in Shada, Cap-Haitien. Here is part 2 of the pictorial how-to. You can find Part 1 here.  Building the stairs.
Molds for the toilet holes and pouring the concrete floor. Four plastic buckets are used to form the mold for where the toilet holes will be located for the 2 chambers. The concrete is poured and allowed to cure.  Lids for unused toilet holes.
Finishing touches. The roof and door are added as well as a few accents. The chambers are sealed.  Urine Diverting Toilet and Urinal
Unfinished interior with urinal and 2 toilets (1 for adults, 1 for children). The simple urinal was constructed from cement with a wooden mold.  Urine collection drum and air vent. Hoses drain urine into the urine collection drum.  Pa jete fatra andedan twalet la!!! Don’t throw trash in the toilet. Latrine design allows for natural light and ventilation.
Related Posts: Tech Tuesday: Urine-Diverting (Dry) Toilet [Shada, Haiti] Pt 1by Catherine LaineApril 10th, 2008
At the end of March, we and our community partner, SOIL, finished 2 urine-diverting dry toilets (a.k.a. ecosan toilets) in Shada, Cap-Haitien. The latrines are equipped two chambers where waste is converted into fertilizer, a urinal, 2 toilet bowls (one for adults and a shorter one for children) that separates urine and feces, and a pipe that diverts urine to a separate container. For the chambers, one side is used while waste in the other dries and decomposes. Information on the basic design of urine-diverting toilets can be found in Hesperian Foundation’s Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment [available free at a pdf on their site, 52 pages]. The good:Urine diverting dry toilets offer a safe and sanitary way to deal with fecal material, can be permanently sited as opposed to pit latrines, and don’t require water. The dry conditions kill most pathogens and parasites, including roundworm eggs. These above ground systems, which provide easy access for emptying, are best in places where people will use treated human waste as fertilizer and/or where the ground water is high/there is risk of flooding. Urine collected in a separate container (e.g. plastic jug, etc.) can be mixed with water and used as fertilizer. The latrines we built together will serve 200 people each. The bad:Safe use requires training as they work differently from pit latrines, overhang toilets, etc. Specifically, dry litter (e.g. dirt, ash, grass, leaves, sawdust) must be added after each use to prevent unpleasant odors and accelerate decomposition. Human waste, which its potential store of cysts, worms, harmful protozoa, etc. takes a year of composting before it is safe for use on crops. While humanure is a great source of soil nutrients, many are not particularly keen on using it (or urine) as fertilizer. There are also cultural prejudices in handling latrine waste that must be dealt with. This leaves the inconvenient problem of what to do with the waste once both chambers are full. We’re working with SOIL on setting up a municipal compost site. They have identified agro-businesses that are interested in the fertilizer if it proves to be without harmful pathogens after the year-long composting/decomposition period. Surveys of families with latrines have indicated that there is demand for an emptying service. One of the businesses that we intend to create will be involved in the emptying of wet latrines for biogas production and dry latrines for compost. Check out this very interesting post from Haiti innovation on the current secret practices for latrine emptying in Maissade: Nocturnal Latrine Cleaners (And Other Surreal Sanitation Stories) The bottom line:Dry composting latrine are a safe sanitation solution for locations where flooding occurs or where the water table is high. However, in cultures where individuals do not wish to use humanure or urine as fertilizer, alternative solutions for final disposal/use of waste must be sought. Pictorial How-to (Part 1)What follows is a rudimentary step by step guide to the construction process. Photos are from the 2 builds. Materials:
The Foundation Outlining the base of the toilet.
The two chambers
Constructing the floor slab
More info on ecological toilets: Related Posts: Link of the Day 021408: I’m in your house, stealing your vattsby Catherine LaineFebruary 14th, 2008
Hmm, plasma TVs are shocking energy hogs. Yet another reason they’re losing out to LCDs. FYI: This odd title comes from the “I am in your base killing your d00ds” meme. |
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