InterIntel Working to Bring Environmental Solutions to Haiti

Daniel Schnitzer is Co-Founder and Director of Project Management at InterIntel, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity based in Cambridge, MA.  InterIntel works at the community level to improve energy services and environmental management with empowering, self-sustaining projects.  They are presently organizing three projects on the southwestern peninsula of Haiti. In this post, Dan explains how he started the organization with the goal of “democratizing sustainability”:

Back in August of 2008, during my first trip to Haiti, I was standing in front of the heaviest paperweight I had ever seen in my life. It was a perfectly new 170 kW diesel generator, connected to a non-functional streetlighting grid in a coastal town called Tiburon on the western tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula. My Haitian friends had told me that the local congressman spent tens of thousands of dollars and a great deal of effort into developing this project. But now that he had been re-elected, no one was sure whether this generator would ever give light to Tiburon. Electricite d’Haiti built the grid, but had since abandoned it.

During that trip I encountered many other symptoms of the governmental and market failure we read and hear about most often in the form of statistics like these: 800,000 children and 500,000 women die worldwide each year from respiratory disease caused by indoor air pollution from dirty biomass cooking fuel; in 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne killed 3,000 people in Haiti; in 2008, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike tore paths of destruction through Haiti, causing untold property damage and killing at least 800; each year 30,000,000 trees are cut down in Haiti, which now has just 1% of its land under forest cover.

These symptoms are inequitable for the obvious reason that they disproportionately affect the poor, the oppressed and the disenfranchised. InterIntel and many other organizations operate on the conviction that solutions for many of the root causes of symptoms like illness, disasters and poverty are readily available. Further, we believe that solutions can go one step further than economic development; they can foster social justice.

However, time and again, the “solutions” pandered to the governments and people of least developed countries by the IMF, World Bank and USAID not only failed, but in many cases made situations worse. This is hardly surprising, though. What little participation countries receiving aid from these organizations have is controlled by their finance ministers, who represent the interests of the business elite – not the people.

That is why InterIntel takes a community-based, participatory approach to its projects. We use surveys to discover the needs, constraints and desires of residents, and depend on facts, not ideologies, to guide our work. In order to truly solve the root problems so ubiquitous in the developing world, we must engage in empowering, self-sustaining activities that put people to work, prevent capital flight, and transfer knowledge.

For example, InterIntel discovered through its surveys of 265 residents in the community of Les Anglais that the payback period on a $20US solar-powered LED lamp could be as little as three months, and typically at most fifteen months, based on the amount presently spent on kerosene and candle-based lighting. If such lamps were available, residents would have the option to use a light source that is better for their health and their budget. Our solution is to build a clean energy retail store to stock appropriate energy technologies like solar lamps, solar home systems, and efficient charcoal stoves. We have introduced three key features of this project – cooperation, training and microfinance – to ensure that it has the greatest possible impact.

I encourage you to read more about this and our other projects on our website, www.interintel.org.  In order to make these projects a reality though, InterIntel needs to raise a minimum of $20,000.  We estimate our total costs for the year to be $80,000.  Since receiving our 501(c)(3) status in mid-January of 2009, we have raised over $2,500 from individual donors and greatly appreciate donations of any size – even $25 is enough to purchase and ship two solar LED lamps to Les Anglais. Donations can be securely made through PayPal on our website: www.interintel.org. If you are interested in volunteering, please visit our website to learn more about us and send an email. You can also support our cause by sending our website to friends, family and colleagues, or by becoming a “fan” of InterIntel on our facebook page.
-Daniel Schnitzer

This is our first post from guest blogger Daniel Schnitzer. If you’re interested in blogging for us, send an email to dorothee@see3.net.

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