“If we have clean water, we can take everything else into our own hands…”
Betsy, our partner in Haiti, is excited that HOPE’s 2022 Move For H20 is raising funds to help 5,000 people in 12 neighbourhoods of Fon Batis gain access to clean water.
People in Fon Batis are excited as well, as evidenced by one man’s proclamation, “If we have water, we have nothing more to ask. We will take everything else into our own hands.”
Clean water changes the lives of everyone who has access to it and is often the catalyzing step communities take to end the extreme poverty they experience every day.
Only 50% of Haitians take less than thirty minutes to reach a drinking water point. A large part of the population travels long distances every day to reach a water point. Throughout the country, only 12% of households have access to drinking water in their place of residence.
In Fon Batis, this catalyzing step cannot come soon enough. Located high in the mountains of western Haiti, Fon Batis is home to just over 9,000 people. Currently, the main source of water for 12 of the neighbourhoods in Fon Batis is the Marianne Spring. The trek to the spring is not easy. Women and children trek across uneven and jagged terrain, ascending higher and higher into the mountains. During the rainy season the trek is too dangerous so families use donkeys to carry the heavy jugs of water down the steep, slippery mountain. Falls are common, resulting in people spraining or fracturing limbs on the journey down.
Move For H20 participants plan to raised enough funds to enable the people of Fon Batis to construct a water system that will bring clean water to community taps in the 12 neighbourhoods of Fon Batis. The system will include four large water storage tanks, a water treatment plan run by solar energy and 6 kilometres of pipe.