ENGAGING CHILDREN IN HAITI: UTILIZING FOUND MATERIALS AND PROVEN TECHNIQUES TO GROW FOOD AND FILTER WATER

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is the design and implementation of a community health project at a new school campus for 600 students in St. Louis Du Norde, Haiti. The design harvests and filters rainwater to drinking water standards, grows nutritional vegetable crops on secure rooftops, creates social space, and recycles old tires, plastic bottles and rice sacks that otherwise pose a massive solid waste problem in Haiti. The processes are also taught to the students so they can take and use the planters at home. The materials for building the growing containers and the growing media are all free and made from local wastes (tires, plastic bottles, rice sacks, manure, soil etc.). They are easy to build and free to construct making them accessible to even to the poorest and neediest families in Haiti. The idea is to develop easily replicable and desirable solutions to the basic health needs.