No. 79: Cold Big Apples and Hungry Haitian Sharks!

I have just arrived in New York. It is bitterly cold. It is not that nice ‘Ooo!-this-is-rather-refreshing’ sort of cold. It’s a bone-freezing cold. Tomorrow I have 5 meetings in 5 different locations around Manhattan. As I trudge from one meeting to the next I will get bluer and colder. Only now do I realise I didn’t pack enough. (indeed, had I brought and worn my whole wardrobe it still wouldn’t be enough!)

Over the weekend it will all change. I will be in Haiti where the temperature is bouncing around 25 degrees C. The sun will be shining. I will have too many clothes. That’s the sort of problem I like. I am going to Haiti to meet with Jim Chu from DLo Haiti (see Note 43, copied below - Isle is now a shareholder in DLo).

However nothing comes without a price. When arranging this trip a few weeks ago Jim mentioned that there was a sponsored sea swim happening at the same time. It sounded fun and I agreed to participate. The event will raise money for a coral reef restoration programme and to support a swimming programme for children in Haiti, both very worthwhile.

Here I am 48 hours before the event wondering what it was that made me agree to a 6.4km open-water swim in the shark-infested waters around Haiti. My youngest son (aged 13) is joining me for the swim, along with ( I hope) a lot of other people. I was briefly tempted to refer to my fellow swimmers as ‘Chums’, but since a Chum in English is used to describe both a friend and the raw meat and blood that one might throw into the sea to attract big fish to your fishing boat the reference feels a bit too near the knuckle.

Think of us on Saturday morning. The swim starts at 630am local time (do sharks have a breakfast time?). If this is my last Note then you will know why….

Should you want to know more, or feel compelled to make a contribution, you can donate and designate me or Torin (my son) as the swimmer you are supporting by going to www.swimforhaiti.org/donate.html 

Piers Clark

Chairman, Isle Utilities

Tel +44 7976 344233

Do you want to receive the semi-regular blog ‘Notes from Piers’? If so click here:   http://www.psacet.wix.com/piers

Isle is celebrating our 100^th TAG at the Global Water Summit, Athens 

Global TAG Conference and Awards, 26^th April 2015. 

Please get in touch for information about how to attend.

The best 5 hours of the week….

Today I booked some holiday and visited a small business in Haiti. The business is called DLo Haiti and it distributes water to rural communities. Its CEO, Jim Chu, is a truly inspiring man. You should know about him. Everyone should know about him.

First some facts. Haiti is a beautiful Caribbean island, surrounded by deep blue oceans, with white sandy beaches and lush mountain ranges. However since the 2010 earthquake Haiti is a country in recovery. 3000 people a year die of cholera. In rural areas unemployment is above 80%. People hustle to survive. They squeeze out an existence. Haiti doesn’t have the luxury of a water distribution network. In the big cities good quality water is supplied by tanker to street sellers. Outside the cities its frighteningly sporadic. When you can get it, clean water costs $33/m3. That’s 60 times the cost of US tap water. In Haiti, if you are poor you drink untreated well water, which is sold in the streets in 20 litre drums at a lower price than the clean water. Most of the time there isn’t much of a choice. Its dirty well water, or even dirtier canal water. Or nothing.

Jim’s vision for DLo Haiti is to establish a network of ‘water kiosks’. These are basically shops. Shops that sell clean water that has been produced on-site (using RO technology). He has 5 kiosks established already with another 15 planned for the next 12 months. This is not a charity. It’s a business. The water is priced at the same level as the dirty well water, and (crucially) the profit is shared through the supply chain. For the full story see the attached slides.

Jim is obsessed with building the local communities. It starts as ‘just’ a shop that sells water. But by employing locals money stays local. Suddenly the money isn’t going to the water trucking companies in the city. Next the kiosks sell other liquid products: such as milk – from Haitian cows and pasteurised on local Haitian farms. The water kiosk quickly becomes an integral part of the local community infrastructure. And that’s to say nothing of the healthcare benefits.

This approach is truly ground breaking. It is a fundamental shift in how water can be supplied in developing countries. Jim is proving the model in Haiti, but it could apply in many places around the world. Proving that water supply in developing countries can be economically sustainable is vital. Charity projects are great, but they are not a lasting solution. Often when a water pump breaks down (which they always do) no one local has the skills or capital to repair them. This is why most charity funded water pumps lie idle within a few years of construction. Water businesses need to be economically sustainable. And they need to be so deeply embedded into the local community that the community feels they ‘own’ them.

So successful has Jim’s kiosk model been that the locals apparently offered to ‘encourage’ a hotel to buy Kiosk water by setting tyres alight on the hotel front lawn. He wisely persuaded them against this strategy. In my few hours on the Island I got to visit a water kiosk, two resellers, and a local school. The school was particularly telling. 400 students and teachers sharing just under 150 lts of clean water a day. That’s two cups each if you are lucky. Madness. I sweated more than that whilst standing there (It was hot. I don’t have a health condition)

Isle gives a significant proportion of its profits to entrepreneurial businesses in the water sector in developing countries (through a charity we set up called REEF, the Revolving Economic Empowerment Fund). My goal in meeting Jim was to see if they were suitable for support from REEF. And they so are. Anyone who has followed these Notes this week will know it has been fairly manic. Exciting and fulfilling, but manic.

However the 5 hours I spent getting to know Haiti and DLo Haiti were, without a shadow of doubt, the best.