Haiti Outreach

Haiti Outreach, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit NGO based in Minnesota in the U.S. and Pignon, Haiti, that works with communities in Haiti on a range of issues from water to education and other projects. Our vision is for Haiti to become a developed country, with abundant clean water, sanitation, food, medical care, infrastructure like roads and electricity, educational and job opportunities, for all. Unlike most NGO's operating in Haiti, we are not a relief organization. We are interested in long term, sustainable development. We help the communities and the government to build and sustain these projects, mostly clean water projects in rural areas where they drink contaminated river water, with our training program for management responsibility. We also include sanitation education in this training. We operate using a 4-point community development model for long term sustainability to ensure that the projects will last over a long period of time. • The request for assistance comes from the community and not from us; we don’t tell them what they need; they tell us. • They must organize, with our assistance, and participate in all levels of planning. • The group responsible for the project must be a cross-section of the community, and the project must benefit the entire community. • There must be an economically viable maintenance plan established and managed by the community. How are we different? Our work is based on a grassroots effort involving community responsibility, participation and ownership. This is unlike many well-intentioned “development” projects that lack this economic sustainability element and end up creating a dependency. We have 20 staff in Haiti, all but one of which are Haitian citizens. We currently have a small staff of 4 in the U.S. to fundraise and administer.