Berättelse

Sanitet som skapar framtidstro: Så når SOIL allt fler familjer i norra Haiti

SOIL arbetar för att ge fler familjer i Haiti tillgång till trygga och hållbara sanitetslösningar. Vi har pratat med Carine Robert, SOIL Finance Director, och Alyson Lucas, SOIL Development Director, som berättar hur EkoLakay växer, vilka utmaningar de möter och vad projektstödet möjliggör. Ta del av deras inspirerande arbete!

For those who may not know you yet, how would you describe SOIL?

SOIL’s work begins with a simple but urgent question: what would it take to ensure that every family in Haiti has access to a safe, dignified toilet at home?
In the rapidly growing neighborhoods of Cap-Haïtien—where sewer networks do not exist and the city population is expanding faster than infrastructure can keep pace—families are often left without a safe place to use the toilet, explains Alyson Lucas.

SOIL is a nonprofit organization working to change that by providing sustainable sanitation services in northern Haiti. We operate a household toilet service called EkoLakay; whereby each customer who subscribes to the service receives a container-based toilet, and our team safely collects and transports the waste for transport to our treatment site. What makes SOIL unique is that we combine social impact, environmental sustainability, and strong operational rigor in a very practical, community-based way, adds Carine Robert.

Can you tell us about the project you are implementing with support from the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation and what you aim to achieve through it?

Today, more than 4,000 households subscribe to SOIL’s EkoLakay service, each paying a monthly fee of 350 HTG for a container-based toilet in their home. Each service area follows a weekly waste collection schedule — just like any other trash or waste collection service — except that instead of taking the collected waste to a landfill, we transform into regenerative, nutrient-rich compost, says Alyson Lucas.

At the end of the day, SOIL aims to be responsive to sanitation needs by having the capacity to reach more people, the resources to serve more clients effectively, and the systems in place to safely treat and transform more waste, continues Carine Robert.

What does this support make possible within the scope of this project?

With support from the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation, SOIL is reinforcing the backbone of our waste treatment site, increasing our capacity to grow from serving 4,000 households to being able to service 8,000 in the coming years. In partnership with a local construction company called EcoSet, we are completing critical infrastructure improvements, including perimeter fencing, drainage canals, and ground leveling at our treatment site.

Another recent update is that, in collaboration with Haiti’s national water and sanitation authority, SOIL is preparing to launch targeted service discounts for EkoLakay clients who are facing financial barriers to paying their monthly service fee. This effort will support our Research Team in better understanding the factors that influence why clients remain in—or leave—the EkoLakay service, explains Alyson Lucas.

What progress or early insights have emerged since you began working on this project?

And things are going well! The treatment site fencing is nearly complete, and drainage canal construction begins soon—both critical infrastructure upgrades as we scale. The drainage canals are an especially important intervention in the face of climate change where flooding events are becoming more frequent. Just this last week, we received an unpredictably intense amount of rain and flooding that made operations very difficult for our team. These site upgrades will help with that, Alyson Lucas adds.

Looking ahead, what goals are you working toward in this project, and what change do you hope it will contribute to over time?

Looking ahead, SOIL is working to increase access to sanitation in Haiti by expanding into new zones to reach more people in need. At the same time, we are committed to keeping financially vulnerable households in the service through the subsidized pricing model that Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation is helping to support and develop. In parallel, SOIL is strengthening its operational capacity. We are investing in infrastructure to produce sufficient cover material (dry agricultural waste used for flushing) for our weekly collections and to ensure that our waste treatment site can safely receive and process increasing volumes of waste, concludes Carine Robert.

Photos: Alyson Lucas at SOIL compost pile in Mouchinette, Haiti, 2: Carine Robert (right) and Algate (left) SOIL EkoLakay Sales Agent, 3. Carine Robert and Edwige Petit (the Coordinator General of the Haitian Water & Sanitation Authority).