Gridlocked traffic, exhaust fumes, blaring horns: a typical morning in Port-au-Prince.

Our relief efforts were back in full swing today, and a constant stream of partnering groups arrived at the warehouse to pick up supplies to be distributed to displaced families. In the Cite Solei slum our water team identified several new sites for water purification units.

The slum has thousands of displaced families and many have received little or no assistance with clean water. In some of the spots there is no water source. So in one area our team installed a huge 1,000 gallon tank from which to draw water. We will have a water truck making daily rounds ensuring that the tanks are full.

Back at the warehouse, I trained the first group of mothers (and father) in how to use the Lifesaver bottle. Our partner, Lifesaver Relief, has donated hundreds of bottles to be distributed to displaced Haitians. OBI has chosen to distribute the bottles to parents with very young children, especially nursing mothers.

We are doing the training in small groups to make sure that each parent has the opportunity to interact with us and ask questions. The Lifesaver bottle uses air pressure to force water through the filter; it comes out very clean and very fast under pressure. There was a lot of laughter as we all got squirted by water—clean, safe drinking water.

The team is getting ready to install our huge tent in Camp Dadadou to serve as a school. Today we were busy preparing all the parts and making sure there was a big space cleared in the camp. In the afternoon, our good friend Val came over to discuss details for expanding our fish farming project in an effort to establish over 100 new jobs and provide protein-rich fish to thousands of Haitians.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Caribbean, Clean water projects, David Darg, Disaster Relief, Earthquake, Haiti. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.