IIT Students go to Haiti: Making a Difference – Making us Proud

By Kevin Franke

Let us stop and think for a moment about pride. True pride; not hubris or self-importance, but dignity and self-respect. What are you proud of? Perhaps your grades last semester or an important decision you made? Do you take pride in the work you do; the values you stand for; the people you are close to? Do you feel it every day, deep inside? Does it give you and others around you strength?

Just recently I came to feel a very strong sense of pride for having gotten involved with a group of very hard-working and dedicated students at IIT who are making a difference where it is truly needed. Over the last several months, members of IIT chapters of Haiti Outreach and Engineers Without Borders worked very hard to prepare for a very important trip to the country of Haiti. That trip became reality less than one month ago.

From January 10th to 16th, Algirdas Bielskus (3rd yr. MAE), Jessica Nicholson (staff, CAEE), Adam Nizich (3rd yr. CAEE), Eric Radloff (4th yr. CAEE), Mark Rokita (4th yr. CAEE), and Kathryn Weissman (3nd yr. CAEE) worked in the Central Plateau of Haiti on two very important projects:

First, the team assessed the size and location of a school recently built in Haiti (designed, of course, by a previous IIT group). This data will be used for a solar panel electrical system to provide the school with power for lights and a computer. Meetings were held with the school’s administrators to gauge the electrical needs for the school and to begin planning the schematics for the system that will be installed.

Second, the team began addressing the urgent need for a potable drinking water distribution system in the city of Pignon. The only water source for the city is a stream in which goats, pigs, chickens, and any other animals are free to splash about in. As one can imagine, the water is badly contaminated. There is no reliable distribution system available, let alone a system to purify the water. Residents take their water straight from the stream and contaminated water has caused severe health problems for citizens of Pignon.

A crucial step in the process of building this potable water distribution system actually did not involve engineering work. There are many difficult political obstacles to cross in order to get such a project successfully started and implemented. Two meetings were held with the water committee, Rotary club, local engineers, the town judge, and the mayor of Pignon. Mark Rokita was the student presenter from IIT and spoke through a translator to the officials.

The meetings were a success, and it was decided that the officials will exchange design documents at a later date and preliminary plans for an April trip were made. Also, a gift was presented to the mayor of Pignon, signifying the beginning of a collaborative relationship between IIT and the people of Haiti. You will be happy to know that the gift was purchased right here in our very own campus bookstore!

For those who are unfamiliar, these efforts in Haiti are sorely needed. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. It has a population that is twice as large as the state of Minnesota, yet its size is only one-eighth of that state. There is one doctor per 9,846 persons, as compared to the 1 to 365 ratio in the U.S. Just 45% of the population are literate (U.S. literacy: 99%) and only 8.6% of the population has a high school education. The average yearly household income is a mere $225 and a large majority lives in dire poverty.

Yet Haitians are a proud people. They work hard and are known for their perseverance; especially Haitian women, who are widely known to be the backbone of their society. Every Saturday, they walk extreme distances (often up to 8 hours a trip) to and from the marketplace to sell their fruit, goats, pigs, chickens, and anything that could possibly fetch a price. When Caucasians or wealthy visitors walk through the streets, the adult citizens do not ask for charity – there is far too much work to be done to bother with that.

In general, the people of Haiti are very happy. This may seem surprising to anyone who has a grasp of the extreme severity of poverty in the country. It is in this fact that one can understand the true importance of the trip made by our IIT students. It is a tremendously significant life learning experience. “It made me a lot more appreciative of the conveniences that I have here in the United States, like access to food, health care, and even clean water,” says Kathryn Weissman of her experience in Haiti.

Not only was it special for those involved, but the students’ presence in the town is a very exciting thing for Haitians. Children in the town “were very friendly…and they followed us everywhere because they were eager to learn about us,” adds Kat.

“A lot of kids have never seen their own faces in the mirror, so taking a digital picture and showing it to them on the camera screen is really special,” says Mark Rokita. Mark, Al, and Eric also enjoyed playing soccer with children in Pignon and were amazed to find the boys easily tired them out, in spite of only eating only one or two meals daily for their whole lives.

In the beginning of this article, I suggested that true pride should be felt every day. It should be felt deep within. It should be a source of strength, not just for oneself, but for others as well. The trip that our five IIT students and one IIT staff member took in January is something to be proud of. Everyone involved – including faculty and students who could not make the trip but contributed along the way – should be proud for making a difference. And IIT is surely proud of them.

For more information, please visit the Haiti Outreach website at www.iit.edu/~haiti or the EWB website at www.iit.edu/~ewb-iit.