Framewrx International

We work in Pays Pourri and Marozo, Haiti; neighboring mountain communities comprised of 62 villages between the two. The average population of each village is approximately 300 people (no census data exists). These are rugged and remote mountains, with no functioning roads into the area; it is a four-hour hike from the closest point that can be accessed by a vehicle to the first village we work in. There is no electricity, running water, or medical services available. Children frequently walk up to five hours round-trip daily to collect water from streams that are also used for washing laundry, personal bathing, and watering animals. This water is unfit to drink, and the long trek makes it difficult for children to attend school as consistently as they need. Despite these – and many other – challenges, the communities we work with have carved out a sustained history of independence based on agricultural success rooted in community resilience. Unfortunately, due to climate change, weather patterns have shifted dramatically – putting people in the area at serious risk of becoming climate refugees. Rains now come with far less frequency or predictability, and typically arrive in storms of much greater intensity. Longer dry periods, separated by stronger storms that bring higher volumes of rain and more damaging winds has increased water stress, making it more difficult to grow crops – the lifeblood of villages throughout Haiti’s remote mountains. The focal point of our project is to build high-capacity rainwater harvesting systems. The systems we build are either attached to community buildings such as churches and schools, or to select lakous (a concentration of homes far from a larger village) throughout the area. Each system collects and holds approximately 5,500 gallons of water, and is incredibly durable – nearly all having survived Hurricane Matthew. IG:@frmwrx