SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) is a nonprofit organization based in Haiti that works to transform human waste into a resource by providing ecological sanitation and jobs for underserved communities lacking proper infrastructure. OAEC trained several SOIL staff members in a PDC at the International Permaculture Convergence (IPC11) in Cuba, and facilitated a collective permaculture design process with the SOIL staff in 2014 to design the SOIL ecology center and offices in the North of Haiti.
Check out our Permaculture blog posts for our stories from Haiti!
Through Resilient Community Design, the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s permaculture-based collaboration with SOIL is supporting Haiti to transform human waste into resources. SOIL’s project of community-based composting toilets not only improves public health through water quality improvement and disease reduction, but also increases local economic sustainability through job creation and a valuable product — nutrient-rich soil.
Resilient Community Design is a facilitated process that builds the capacity of place-based communities to thrive by adapting to changed and changing ecological and social conditions overtime. It enables groups to better address their social, cultural, ecological and economic needs by deepen ecological understanding of their place, strengthen practices of self-governance through collaborative decision-making, and increasing social cohesion and personal welfare through collective work.
For more information on OAEC’s on-site Ecological Sanitation work right here at home:
