During the last week of April I had the opportunity to be part of a team that installed a 9.6 kW PV system in a rural part of Haiti near Les Cayes. The system powers the Maison de Naissance birthing clinic .This was my second trip to Haiti, and hopefully not my last. My previous trip was in 1999 to Port-au-Prince. 
Les Caye is a world away from Port-au-Prince. The image on the left is of Cite Sole - one of the most notorious slums of Port-au-
Prince. Les Caye is in the heart of the rice belt of Haiti and is very lush and green when compared to the city to the north. Mango trees, Papaya, Breadfruit, Banana, Plantain, and fields of rice cover the countryside.
While food is plentiful in comparison to the more urban areas of Haiti, people are still
desperately poor. All farming is done by hand and most farming is subsistence farming – there is little market for the rice grown by Haitians because the subsidized US rice that is imported is much cheaper. There is also little infrastructure for the farmers to get there product to market.
Maison de Naissance serves a population of mothers and children that would otherwise have no access to any kind of healthcare. The image to the right is the “waiting room” at the clinic. The clinic severs about a ten square mile radius and many of these expecting mothers walked to the clinic in order to be seen.
Prince. Les Caye is in the heart of the rice belt of Haiti and is very lush and green when compared to the city to the north. Mango trees, Papaya, Breadfruit, Banana, Plantain, and fields of rice cover the countryside.While food is plentiful in comparison to the more urban areas of Haiti, people are still
desperately poor. All farming is done by hand and most farming is subsistence farming – there is little market for the rice grown by Haitians because the subsidized US rice that is imported is much cheaper. There is also little infrastructure for the farmers to get there product to market.Maison de Naissance serves a population of mothers and children that would otherwise have no access to any kind of healthcare. The image to the right is the “waiting room” at the clinic. The clinic severs about a ten square mile radius and many of these expecting mothers walked to the clinic in order to be seen.
The clinic is a number of miles from any grid power, which is also very unreliable and subject to constant outages. Before the PV system was installed the clinic relied on a diesel generator to provide power. Getting the diesel fuel to the clinic was a very time consuming and expensive task. The generators were constantly breaking down. For a number months the clinic had no power and babies were delivered by oil lantern. A generous donation to the foundation allowed the clinic to install the PV system which is much more reliable and requires very little maintenance and no fuel except for the sunshine. The PV system charges a battery bank that allows the clinic to function normally 24 hours a day.
If you would like to see more pictures from the trip click here.
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