Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods
| Founded | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Sasha Kramer, Sarah Brownell |
| Type | 501(c)(3) |
| Focus | Ecological sanitation |
| Location | |
Area served | Haiti |
Key people | Sasha Kramer |
| Website | http://www.oursoil.org/ |
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods or SOIL is an American nonprofit developmental aid organization co-founded by Sasha Kramer and Sarah Brownell in 2006.[1] Its goal is to develop integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction in Haiti. SOIL’s efforts have focused on the community-identified priority of increasing access to ecological sanitation, where human wastes are converted into compost. Ecological sanitation simultaneously tackles some of Haiti’s toughest challenges – providing improved sanitation to people who would otherwise have no access to a toilet and producing organic compost critical for agriculture and reforestation.
Programs
- Toilets. SOIL designs and builds low-cost ecological sanitation toilets made from locally available materials. The primary design that SOIL builds are called urine-diversion, or dry toilets that separate the urine and the feces through the use of a specially designed toilet seat.[2] The sterile urine is used directly as a fertilizer or diverted into soakaway pits. The feces is treated through a process of managed composting to ensure that all pathogens have been killed and the resulting compost is safe for agricultural use. SOIL built the first ecological sanitation toilet in Haiti in 2006 and went on to build toilets around northern Haiti in partnership with many local community groups and international organizations.[3] Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, SOIL expanded to Port-au-Prince.[4] More than 20,000 Haitians are currently using SOIL ecological sanitation toilets.[5]
- Compost. Waste collected from SOIL’s ecological sanitation toilets, as well as the ecological sanitation toilets of other organizations in Haiti, are treated through a process of managed thermophilic composting at SOIL’s decentralized composting waste treatment sites around the country.[6] SOIL has produced over 400,000 liters of compost since 2006.[5]
- EcoSan Education. In 2011, SOIL published The SOIL Guide to Ecological Sanitation.[7] This document describes SOIL’s five years of ecological sanitation experience in Haiti. It covers topics such as toilet designs, management strategies, composting techniques, and lessons learned. The SOIL Guide is available in English and Haitian Creole.
- Permaculture. Starting in late 2013 SOIL began attending permaculture design courses at the 2013 International Permaculture Congress in Cuba.[8] They are designing two farms according to permaculture principles, the SOIL office, farm, and the KOMOP farm. KOMOP is a contraction of Komite = Committee and Opòtinite = Opportunity.[9][10]
See also
References
- ^ "Sasha Kramer, Ecologist", The National Geographic
- ^ Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Miracle Toilet", The New York Times", December 1, 2010
- ^ Shelby Gomez, "Solving Haiti's Waste Management Problem", Earth Day Network", March 29, 2011
- ^ Amy Bracken, "Waste Not: Composting Toilets in Haiti", PRI's The World", June 2, 2011
- ^ a b Christine Dell'Amore, "Human Waste to Revive Haitian Farmland?", The National Geographic, October 26, 2011
- ^ "earthrise - Eco Toilets", Al Jazeera", March 30, 2012
- ^ "The SOIL guide to ecological sanitation", Full Online Library of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance", 2011
- ^ Roy, Monika; Noel, Jean-Marie (2 December 2013). "SOIL Attends International Permaculture Training in Cuba". Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (blog). Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- ^ "The SOIL Permaculture Design Process". Permaculture News. Occidental Arts & Ecology Center. 19 April 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- ^ "SOIL Attends International Permaculture Training in Cuba". Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (blog). 2 May 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2014.