New stove tops for TLUD biomass stove chambers, shich run 2 burners and oven off one combustion chamber!

With help a from Controlled Air in Farmington MN

This kitchen center is for the people of Haiti to see what it can be like, save trees, eliminate charcoal use and cook with clean Bio-gas fuel that is good for their health.

Cholera in Haiti continues as people get sick and defecate on the ground.  Rains come and wash it into the rivers and ground water easily because of the eroded mountainsides.  Good soil stabilized with grasses hold the contaminants long enough for microorganisms that will devour pathogens. 

Read more about microorganisms click here!

“We would never think about taking away these happy women's livelihoods!

We will replace selling charcoal with clean burning pellets for healthier lives while saving the trees!

Click here to see how we can give them new job opportunities!

Click here to see why we have to stop burning charcoal!

Delta Airlines to start service from Atlanta Georgia to Port au Prince Haiti April 7th.

Letter from the President of Haiti Reconstruction International.

You may not be aware that most of our board and members of this non-profit corporation also have full time jobs while volunteering thousands of hours of helping Haitians. 

I have worked for the airlines for most of my career, started with Western Airlines, then Republic Airlines who was bought by Northwest Airlines who was then bought by Delta Airlines.  I am very proud to work for Delta, they are doing so much for Haiti (see video below).  I just recently returned from Arcahaie Haiti where I met with Joel Ducasse and discussed plans for building Haiti Reconstruction's Sant Fòmasyon (training center).

I flew through JFK where I met Susan Pepe and Ronica Mitchum Delta's JFK general manager of passenger service, both of Haitian decent.  I was also greeted in the jetway at PAP by Delta's station manager Guerson Petit Homme.

He brought his wife with to meet me at Matthew 25 in Delmas to discuss HRI's training programs and possibilities of getting more non-stop flights to PAP especially to the ATL World Port where the thousand of associations and charitable organizations can have very good connections to fly to PAP.

See our new member Sandra M Whiteley and her husband's video Mardi Madichon on the Pwogram Kreyol page,

Vetiver grass is his champion to stop the erosion and they hope to plant 4.6 billion plants for this project in the next 4 years!

Just imagine how much grass can be trimmed from these plants for fuel efficient stoves!

Picture of one of the 6 fields for this project...

This NGO working on the WINNER: Watershed Initiative for National Natural Environmental Resources is doing what is best for Haiti. They are putting thousands of Haitians to work while training them how to plant more food as they save their environment and mitigate immanent disasters from hurricanes. Click here to read more about his mission

Another member Joel Ducasse shows four months growth of vetiver hedgerows planted by his group on La Quinte River border near Gonaives.

Joel's group mulipling vetiver slips this summer!

The best way to reconstruct Haiti is to start by changing the way we help them.

New housing is worthless if families cannot feed themselves.

It takes Long-term solutions to create success; many NGO’s need to work together in Haiti with one goal:

Make Haiti independent by working with them and provide coaching on  tools they need to better take care of themselves.

"We have to take this opportunity, not to reconstruct Haiti, but to rethink and remodel it," President Preval said, adding any recovery program should bring development to rural areas.

If many NGO’s work together on this project Haiti will have the best chance to turn there county into the paradise it once was!

The mountainsides were once covered with trees grass and brush that held the soil, but Haiti’s deforestation came from clearing land to plant crops and cutting firewood to make charcoal for cooking.
Earthquakes are infrequent in Haiti but hurricanes and torrential rains are a persistent problem, their best soil is washed into the sea.

Right now the soil is so depleted during the dry seasons many times their crops are all lost. Without humus nothing holds moisture on the hillsides. Ground water that is deep in the hillsides of Haiti and are lowering because the rains run off the mountainsides instead of filtering down along the roots of trees and grasses.

Many people have been working for environmental solution for decades. They have determined the only way to stop the erosion with Haiti’s magnitude is the use of vetiver grass. This is not a new discovery it has been used all over the world and it is readily available in Haiti and it is the cheapest way to stop the erosion.

Vetiver grass is the only viable way to stop the erosion and bring back humus to hold moisture on their mountainsides and create many gardens that are not now available. It is hard to teach the need of conservation to anyone who is impoverished and hungry, they only want to plant what they can eat. For this reason to get peasants to plant vetiver. It would be great if we had a program that gives them food for their work. Until then they must really understand how this program will provide gardens for their future. Once they understand how much more food they will produce they will work on the program

Experts like Richard Grimshaw, Criss Julaird, Alberto Rodriguez and many other International agriculture engineers and scientists believe the only hope for Haiti to sustain itself and mitigate hurricanes destruction is to start with Vetiver hedgerows. But the farmers also need to plant between these rows with gardens of plants and trees they need and will still regenerate the soil.

Mike Benge senior agroforestry officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development (retired), worked many years on programs for Haiti and played a major role in initiating its first efforts in reforestation. I knew I was on the right path with vetiver grass and raising goats when I saw this article he wrote article this article on Disaster mitigation Haiti.doc after the deadly hurricane Georges in 1998.

Read this article he wrote for the need of vetiver grass and conservation corps to start it. Create a Haitian Youth Corps.doc The Haitian’s must do the work and take ownership of the projects so they can take pride of their success. Haiti must improve from the bottom up, and will if we give them a chance. Just giving food produces dependencies: This work for food program will give them dignity. Terraces work great for producing more food but they are hard to build and can erode if not well supported. Vetiver grass is easy to plant and makes its own terraces and automatically composts as it catches leaves and other vegetation. When it rains eroding soil from the gardens make the best humas as it filters the water through the grass. Vetiver is not only used for hedgerows on mountainsides but can mitigate flooding in rivers. It even can clean pollutants from the water and guards the ocean from contamination. It also can withstand hurricane winds when trees will be toppled and will re-grow from the roots if the tops are burned off and has modules on it to grow when buried in mud.

Vetiver Grass has many uses; it can be cut short for thatching on roofs, for livestock, crafts and it's best use; make grass fuel pucks that can be sold cheaper than charcoal. Haiti and most 3rd world current charcoal production used for cooking is the largest factor in deforestation and erosion.

Vetiver Grass resolves deforestation and grass cuttings can eliminate the original cause as it can replace charcoal for cooking fuel with no harmful side affects and produces biochar fertilizer!  Look on tabs under conserve resources for more conservation projects like Efficient stoves & ovens to save the environment.

Cholera has sickened at least 370,000 people and killed more than 5,500 as of June 19 2011

"Cholera is spread when the bacteria get into water, almost always via human waste." This is a common practice of finding water in dry riverbeds throughout Haiti's countryside where there is a lack of clean water. Countries with good sanitation do not get cholera simply because it does not spread!

In 2005, the US had 12 cases of cholera - no one died. There were 172,000 cases that same year in Guinea-Bissau - 399 died.

The best way to stop this deadly Cholera epidemic is starting composting toilets systems  and stopping erosion with vetiver grass projects so pathogens will not reach the water supply!

Click here to see how composting soil is the only answer to healthy sanitation and disposal of human waist, avoiding Cholera & Typoid, getting rid of pathogens and worms a constant problem in Haiti

Composting Toilets also makes the best fertilizer known to man! After each toilet use user should add a handfull of biochar (finished processed humanure) then add a large handfull of vetiver grass to start composting process when they shut the lid.

Remember fertilizers will wash into the ocean with the soil if not contained on the mountainsides with vetiver hedgerows!  These fertilized gardens can become the most productive in Haiti.

Richard Higgins from Hertfordshire UK joined our site with great expertise on composting toilets with great fertilizer for Family gardens!

Click here to see more on Family Composting Toilets

Composting humanure, click here

Read more about Mr Higgins here

Richard's blog page