HTRIP: January Highlights

Dear Supporters,

HTRIP started the new year with both feet forward as it conducted another month of its revised agroforestry curriculum, completed data collection about promising tree-planting equipment, and finished purchasing and constructing equipment for its newest community nurseries.

The political disruptions in December set HTRIP's schedule behind, but with the hard work of our technicians and communities, we were able to get back on our feet in January, doubling up education session topics to make up for sessions that were missed. December's primary topic was seed collection and storage (communities collect the seeds for the trees they plant in their own nurseries, and HTRIP supplements these with seeds of rarer species). January's class sessions discussed soil conservation techniques, and we augmented the depth of the material in both.

Communities began putting this educational material to use this month, as they built their nurseries for the 2011 planting season, collecting soil, filling planting bags, gathering seeds, and cultivating seedlings in large germinating trays. HTRIP sponsors several large, central nurseries (in Deschapelles and Bastien, for instance), but the trees it produces there are only meant to supplement the production of each individual community's tree nursery; we consider it important that each community be able to function independently during each phase of the operation, from gathering seeds to pruning adult trees. We will finish distributing supplies to these community nurseries by the end of the week.

HTRIP director Starry Sprenkly planted seven replications of eleven thirty-six-tree plots in the summer of 2009. In the beginning of January, HTRIP staff visited each replication under Starry's guidance to measure tree growth, and collect soil samples and spatial data. The preliminary results from this experiment are excellent (some of the trees ghave grown more than three metres in sixteen months!), and may already provide us with tentative conclusions about the interaction of different tree species in Haiti's mountainous regions, a question that has never been adequately researched--but one that is very obviously tied to HTRIP's mission and goals.

We are looking forward to the next two months as we reach out to select the ten new communities we hope to take on for the 2011-2012 year and begin soil conservation work to lay the groundwork for the summer planting season. Thank you for your continuing support of these endeavors.

The HTRIP Staff
Including Starry Sprenkly and Dan Langfitt

About the images:

Top Right Deschapelles' central nursery: constructing equipment to distribute to communities for sifting soil.

Bottom Left The HTRIP staff atop the hydroelectric dam at Péligre, during a staff retreat last week.

See the RTTP Class in Action!

"I recently completed my first trip to Haiti as a Health Volunteer Overseas instructor in the Rehabilitation Technician Training Program. I found comfortable accommodations in Kay 7 on the HAS campus, and wonderful food cooked by Edith. I was privileged to begin the third class of RTTP students at HAS, and recognize that a lot of work preceded the first class session in selecting these students. The students expressed a desire to help others and recognized the need for rehabilitation services in Haiti. I found the students inquisitive and open to learning, so it was fun to work with them. I admire their spirit in traveling distances to get to class and learning new information through an interpreter. The needs of the people of Haiti are great, and I believe that the RTTP program meets some of these needs and improves the quality of life for many."

--Toni Sanders, Instructor
Rehabilitation Technician Training Program
HAS Haiti Rehabilitation Services Integration Initiative

HTRIP: A Year in Review

Dear Supporters,

December was a challenging month for HTRIP: the holidays at the end of the month have always put pressure on our monthly schedule of education sessions, and combined with disruptions following the elections a month ago, HTRIP was hard-pressed to accomplish the many things on its agenda.

Despite these challenges, we are pleased to say that we were able to make up many of the education sessions missed at the beginning of the month. We collected data on on of HTRIP Director Starry Sprenkle's ongoing experiments with tree growth, and began the daunting task of distributing hundreds of tools to communities for their 2011 nurseries (an important part of HTRIP's mission is to enable communities to practice agro-forestry on their own). We plan to conduct an inventory this month and finish purchasing and distributing nursery materials so that our communities can begin their nurseries earlier this year. We hope to improve on 2010's nurseries, which were delayed by last January's earthquake.

The year 2010 was full of many, many challenges, both for Haiti and for HTRIP. It started with the devastating earthquake of January 12, whose repercussions throughout Haiti were particularly felt in the Artionite Valley, where many people lost relatives and friends in the destruction of Port-au-Prince. The Artibonite received the highest numbers of refugees from the disaster, increasing the pressure on the land for agriculture as well as increasing the need for housing and the number of mouths to feed.

HTRIP and HAS were part of a large cash-for-work program that started after the earthquake, infusing cash into the local economy while improving infrastructure and the environment with public works projects. HTRIP was able to bring this prgram to all of its participating communities, and we supported improvement of mountain roads, the production of hundreds of thousands of trees, the construction of five water catchments, and the building of many kilometers of check dams to slow erosion in ravines.

We managed to function above average this year, in spite of flooding, hurricanes, a decastating cholera epidemic, and political unrest at the end of the year. HTRIP and HAS are still stoically soldiering on, drawing inspiration from the silent strength of the Haitian people. Thank you as always as we leave behind such a difficult year for Haiti, and we hope to continue our efforts with your support this year.

The HTRIP Staff, including Starry Sprenkle and Dan Langfitt

One Year Later: Remembering those lost, celebrating the resilience of the living

This Wednesday, January 12, 2011, marked the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti just one year ago. HAS and the Friends of HAS commemorated the event in a number of ways, which we'd like to share with you now.


In Haiti, at the Hanger Clinic at HAS, a special remembrance ceremony was held. Photographer Martha Rial uploaded a small album of photographs directly from Haiti that day. To view the photographs, click on the image above! More pictures from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website can be seen here. For more media links relating to the earthquake anniversary, visit HAS's "In the News" page by clicking here.


In Pittsburgh on January 12th, an exhibition of artwork from the collection of the Friends of HAS Haiti went on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The show, titled UPSIDE DOWN: Haitian Art in the Aftermath of Chaos, included works from both before and after the earthquake. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and have the opportunity, this exhibition will be open to the public through the end of January. For visitor info at the Warhol, click here.

(Special thanks to Bill Bollendorf for lending some pieces from his own collection to the show, as well as to Miller Frames, and Caliban Bookshop!)

Work For Haiti: An Audio Slide Show by Martha Rial

Click above image to view audio slide show!

Friends Finds a New Friend: Intern Jillian Myers joins the Friends of HAS Haiti!

First, a little background on the program I am working on at Chatham University:

A Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) major at any accreditd university is required to master generalist practice. The Council on Social Work Education is Chatham's accrediting body, and insists that students who graduate from the university be able to demonstrate an ability to work in the field, act to professional standards, and really know what it means to be a social worker. Part of this process is completing some field work, including a 12-credit, 500 hour field placement that is completed over the course of a BSW's fourth year in college. This field placement allows students to complete the program at an accelerated rate, chiseling off as much as a year's worth of university study, while expanding that student's range of experience.

My long-term goal is to work in direct practice, that is, working directly with individuals, rather than in a more community-oriented setting. I am interested in gender equality, and would love someday to act as a therapist.

Why the Friends?

Like many Americans, the need in Haiti was brought dramatically to my attention with the earthquake of this past January. However, working with the Friends has been my more formal introduction to Haiti and Haitian issues, and I am learning a lot. I have long held great interest in helping others, especially those in great need. Haiti needs help, and I am so happy to be on board!
My work so far...

I feel like I have already done so much in my two weeks here! My time thus far has been spent researching possible energy sources that might be used at HAS, including solar ovens. I'm also researching water filtration systems and humanure, or the compost that is created from human waste matter. In addition, I'm helping find new members for the Friends' charity team for the Pittsburgh Marathon, and brainstorming new ideas for possible projects in collaboration with organizations like Chatham.

Oh! And, this Saturday, I will be selling Haitian crafts and metal pieces at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theatre, from 11 am to 5 pm, and will be doing the same on Tuesday the 14th at Chatham's library lobby from 10 am to 3 pm. Please come out and join us!

Update: HTRIP & Hurricanes

For HAS' service area in the upper communes of the Artibonite Valley, hurricanes most often mean a lot of rain, and this was indeed the case with Tomas, which hit Haiti last weekend. Although Dechapelles did not face the same high winds and destructive storm surge as did the South, our region sustained heavy rainfall, which threatens infrastructure, the environment, and public health. In brief, this kind of heavy rain can cause flash flooding that washes out roads and overburdens dams; it washes barren hillsides down to bedrock, and there have been speculations (as of this entry unsubstantiated, fortunately), that the overflowing of public water sources could prompt a worsening of the recent cholera outbreak.

The mountainous areas where HTRIP is working are particularly susceptible to the immediate and long-term effects of heavy rainfall. With Haiti's current environmental situation at crisis point (98% deforested), there is little forest cover to encourage seepage into steep, denuded hillsides, and valuable topsoil is washed into ravines on its way to the Artibonite River and, eventually, the Caribbean. Our organization’s mission is to plant trees to improve agricultural practices and livelihoods in the mountain communities in HAS' catchment area while fighting environmental degradation. Tree roots are deeper and more extensive than those of annual crops like maize and sorghum, so they are an excellent vehicle for soil retention and rainwater absorption—although HTRIP has previously collaborated on larger anti-erosion projects like the water catchment basins and "ravine correction" walls constructed last summer, planting trees is one of the most basic watershed management strategies available to fight the effects of the heavy rain that comes with a hurricane... and we and our partner communities do a lot of it. A storm like Tomas, simply put, reaffirms the importance of the work we do.