【Haiti】3 years of Peace Winds work / Coronavirus response

Peace Winds (PW) continues to strengthen disaster preparedness and response capacities in rural communities of Haiti. Our third year has just begun in Chantal Commune in South Department.
Peace Winds (PW) has been working in the southern Haiti for the past 3 years, to improve communities’ capacity to prepare and respond to natural disasters such as hurricanes. The PW team provides technical trainings for safer and more sound housing construction skills as well as good hygiene promotion which is consisted of teaching the importance of correct hand washing.

School girls washing their hands

Washing hands after seminar

Community responds to COVID-19 prevention in rural Haiti:

On March 19, Haiti identified the first case of COVID-19 and the government immediately declared State of Emergency, and announced the closures of schools, universities, vocational centers, and factories are closed until further notice, banned gatherings larger than 10 people, and installed curfew from 8pm to 5am.
In late March, PW WASH committee members from Tapion, started to visit residents and began “tippy tap” installation promotion to prevent COVID-19. “tippy tap” which is an easy to install simple hand washing facility using just wood sticks, ropes and a small water container which all the items can be found at any household.

“Thanks to Peace Winds that my community understands how to install tippy taps and practice proper handwashing method which is important for COVID-19 prevention,” said Christa CLOTAIRE, Mayor of Tapion in Saint Jean du Sud Commune, where Peace Winds provided WASH workshops during 2018-2019 project. “WASH promoters from PW project have been very active going around the neighbors and encourage them to install tippy taps, we also made a short video and sharing among the community.”
Not only Tapion, but many of PW served communities such as Maurace, Maillard in Arniquet Commune have also begun tippy tap installation and hand washing promotion. We are so proud to see PW WASH promotors recognize their ability to influence community with their learnings!

Tippy tap at Maurace

Maillard promoters with tippy tap

Despite the coronavirus affecting our activities, PW team continues to work with Chantal community to become more resilient to natural disasters.
This project is funded by the Foreign Ministry of Japan’s Grant Assistance for Japanese NGO Project scheme as well as PW supporters.
Thank you very much for your support in our work in Haiti.