If you have been checking in on this section of our Web Page you will have guessed that technical gremlins raised their ugly heads, and for one reason or another, we lost all of our postings while on our trip to Haiti and then access to this section of our Web Page altogether. Access has now been restored and so, here we are.

HousAll’s trip to Haiti to attend the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) International Business Meeting co-hosted by former US President, Bill Clinton and the President of Haiti, Mr. Rene Preval, was a resounding success. And, our visit with Save the Children in Haiti, could only be described as incredible; what an amazing experience.

IDB Business Meeting

The former President is, it comes as no surprise, one impressive fellow. In a matter of a couple of months, he and IDB President Luis Moreno put together the largest crew of international business leaders ever assembled in Haiti. The Soros Foundation, The President and Prime Minister of Haiti, CIDA, USAID and World Bank and IFC folks were all there to promote economic development in Haiti. There was a positive buzz at this meeting- serious people, serious projects, backed by serious money and some high profile public funders. People tell us Haiti is turning the corner. The mood is hopeful and optimistic. And we are hopeful and optimistic too that we can play some role and make some contribution here.

And the people of Haiti...wow! Bright, talented, creative (and that is just about everybody), even those living in difficult circumstances are proud and grace you with a smile. Their spirit and optimism seem to suggest a change is gonna come. You can't help but be carried away by it.

A close friend of mine told me that our trip to Haiti would be life changing stuff. I am beginning to see what he meant...

We met directly with the most senior Haitian Government Officials including, Prime Minister, Ms. Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, and Minister for Public Works, Mr. Jacques Gabriel and the Director General of Public Health, Dr. Gabriel Thimothe. We met personally with; former US President, Mr. Bill Clinton, the President of the IDB, Mr. Luis Alberto Moreno, and also with the President of the Soros Economic Development Fund, Mr. Stewart J. Paperin. Haiti’s most respected business leaders attended and we met with Mr. Gregory Mevs, of the Win Group, Mr. Einar Madsen of the Barsserie Nationale d’Haiti and Mr. Richard Coles of Multi Tex.

All of those we spoke with expressed an interest in bringing the HousAll to Haiti not just as a solution to the country’s great and varied shelter needs, but as a business and ongoing contributor. Mr. Clinton gave us his personal assurance that the Company will receive his full support and direct intervention in making sure that we meet our mutual goals for Haiti. He promised to help us connect with the right government officials, the right business leaders and with the right financial assistance. In fact, by inviting us to attend this meeting he has already helped us and Haiti immensely.

HousAll will spend the next days and weeks reconnecting with the leaders that we met in Haiti and appointments will be arranged for our next trip, which is expected in the next few weeks.

Special mention should be made of the Canadian Embassy, Ambassador Gilles Rivard, his gracious wife and their staff. The Canadian Embassy hosted a business breakfast for the Canadian Contingent at the conference and went to great and good effort to make sure that we were in contact with the people we needed to be working with. Kudos to Ambassador Rivard, his wonderful wife and their Staff, the breakfast was a huge success for HousAll and we made great strides because of it. HousAll will most certainly inform the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of their excellent representation.

Save the Children

HousAll’s visit with Save the Children was nothing short of incredible. The Company learned more in the week we spent in the field with Save the Children than we would have learned in months in our office back home.

Lee Nelson, Save the Children’s Mission Chief in Haiti and his dedicated and hard working Staff were fabulous hosts and welcomed us into their organization with open arms. Michele Chandler was responsible for all of our logistics while in Haiti and there was not one bump in the road. Martial Bailey, Food Security and Emergency Advisor, acted as our constant companion, interpreter and all around guide for all of the installations in the field and what a great guide he is. Our Engineers, Rodney Schnarr and Faheem Khan, were most impressed with Martial’s hospitality. Charles Manigat, Assistant Program Manager, Child Protection Program, acted as Save the Children’s lead ‘HousAll Trainer and Installation Supervisor’ and with the help of Mathieu Maitre and Jean Dorce, Chauffeurs, composed the HousAll Installation and Maintenance Team for Save the Children in Haiti. Charles and his team were quick to learn the ins and outs of installing a HousAll and in no time flat they were working on their own with little or no guidance.

We installed the unit being used for Save the Children’s demonstration purposes at the SC HQ building in Port-au-Prince on September the 30th, and then Rodney and Faheem took over the next two installations while Richard and I attended the Conference with Bill Clinton. These two sites were deep in the Haitian country-side and way up in the mountains just outside of the town of Jacmel, on Haiti’s southern coast. The scenery was breath taking and the drive/roads nothing less. Rodney is an avid Off-Road enthusiast back home in Canada and he was blown away by the roads going up those mountains. Three fast running streams had to be crossed on the first day and when a ‘monsoon-like’ rain hit late that afternoon they had to down tools and race the water back down the mountain, or, be stuck there for the night, the rivers swell so much. The race was won and that night Martial showed Faheem and Rodney a little bit of Haitian life in Jacmel. The next morning it was back up the mountain to finish the job started and so rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.

Richard had to return to Canada after the meeting with Bill Clinton, but, I stayed and travelled to Jacmel the next day to meet up with our Engineers and Lee Nelson, SC Haiti Mission Chief and Ian Rodgers, Senior Emergency Advisor / E-Team, Save the Children International. Faheem, Rodney and their team were up another mountain along the coast to the east of Jacmel installing one of the 12ft by 16ft shelters for use as a teacher’s living unit. It was located next to the CIDA School in Macary. Lee, Ian and I joined them in the afternoon to see the installation completed and then we all headed back down the mountain for the evening. The following day we all headed back up the mountain to install a HousAll 16 Classroom in the lower school compound where the village was still using rudimentary shelters for classrooms.

Save the Children are testing the HousAll 12 (12ft x 16ft) as Teacher’s Accommodations and Office Space and the HousAll 16 (16ft x 24ft) as Classrooms. Two types of entrances are being examined for the Classrooms, the standard ‘Man Door’ entrance as well as the Garage Door entrance. We have already learned from experience in Haiti that we need more windows down the side walls of all classrooms to allow for better ventilation. The heat and humidity in Haiti is extreme and we will upgrade the units installed as soon as we can; HousAll’s modular design makes this easy to accomplish, even in the field.

Lessons Learned

Going to Haiti was a very good thing for HousAll to do. We learned so much.

From a business perspective we learned that Haiti represents a significant opportunity for growth and advancement of our corporate goals. The Government in Haiti is welcoming foreign investment with 15 year tax exemption status and other incentives. World bodies like the IDB, IFC, Soros Foundation and UN Envoy, Bill Clinton are providing financing and offers of other assistance. And, leading Haitian Companies are showing their full commitment and participation; in short, the climate in Haiti is good for business.

From a humanitarian perspective we learned that the HousAll Shelter System is ideally suited for use in Haiti and can help to make a significant difference in many ways. So far, we are using the HousAll for Teachers’ Accommodations, Administrative Space and Classroom Space. We learned that the HousAll is easy to erect and that full functioning shelter, big or small, can be easily achieved in less than a day. We learned that the HousAll is easily understood by its end-users and that its installation is relatively intuitive; very importantly we learned from them, how we can make it better. Save the Children and Haiti also taught us about other structures that we can make for them using the same design principles. We learned that the HousAll Shelter System provides, dignified, healthy, safe, secure, long life solutions at much lower cost than traditional methods and that the recipients appreciate the difference.

Keep your eyes on this section, because we will have updates coming in from Haiti frequently.

Cheers
Richard Mahoney and Miles Kennedy

See the PRODUCTS - Image Gallery for more pictures from Haiti