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Lindsay Leaving!

On Friday, summer fellow Lindsay Leigh had her last day working on the Kouzin Dlo team. As a Summer Fellow with experience living and working in Haiti, Lindsay provided us with valuable insight on partnering with organizations and working with community leaders. Since our launch, Lindsay has also played a major role in branding our product through swag including aprons, bags and t-shirts printed with our logo and flyers to spread the word in communities. She also worked meticulously to create our visuals our our model for trainings and community outreach activities.

Thank you for all of your hard work Lindsay your hard has been vital to moving forward the launch of Kouzin Dlo!  

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ideate, v. Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈʌɪdɪeɪt/ , U.S. /ˈaɪdiˌeɪt/ 1. trans. To form the idea of; to frame, devise, or construct in idea or imagination; to imagine, conceive.

Oxford English Dictionary

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Field Dispatch - Community Chlorinators Weeks 3 and 4

These two weeks have focused for the most part been working out operational details, with each team member focusing on their own area. We have been working on obtaining Kouzin Dlo swag (aprons, t-shirts, and totebags), reaching out to new potential partners, setting up monitoring systems, coming up with marketing plans, and more.

Our jeran in Bwa Nef is working hard to promote the brand and help machans in the community make sales. We’ve gone through orientation with the jeran for MENELAS, and next week are having MENELAS machan training next week. Next week, we will also start on our second round of training for new machans in Bwa Nef. For these training sessions, the two jerans from the pilot communities will collaborate to come up with a machan training curriculum based on their knowledge and experience with Kouzin Dlo thus far. We're all learning a lot and making a lot of progress!

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Field Dispatch - Bye Moise!

Moise, our International Health Policy master and go-to translator, had his last day as an Archimedes Summer Fellow was this week. Thank you so much for all of your hard work, Moise, and best of luck on your future endeavors.

We will all miss you and look forward to  working again together in the future. Kenbe la!

- Community Chlorinators Team

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Field Dispatch - Trip to Mirebalais

The team got to go on a little excursion to a town northeast of Port-au-Prince called Mirebalais this week! Our host, Charles Plaisimond of FATEM, was a wonderful guide with a lot of valuable insight. He took us to several remote schools and community centers in the area, each with its own unique water situation. One school had an effective rainwater catchment system made of PVC pipe fastened up to the corrugated metal roof on one end, and a huge concrete cistern on the other. Another school was a 15 minute hike up a mountain. Upon arrival, we learned that the only source of water for the school was the river we forged at the beginning of the hike, carried up the mountain in buckets.

In addition to the schools, we also got the treat of visiting the state-of-the-art Partners in Health Hospital in Mirebelais, where an administrator, Vanessa gave us a tour and overview of both successes and challenges they’ve encountered in their first years of operation. We also got to tour the Zanmi Agrikol nourimanba plant in Koporan, where a peanut butter product designed for children suffering from malnutrition is manufactured, as well as the neighboring agriculture and construction vocational school, CFFL is.

Thank you Charles for the wonderful adventure/learning/networking opportunity!

- Community Chlorinators Team

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Field Dispatch: Community Chlorinators Week 2

Monday – The team wrapped up jeran training on the fourth day. In the morning we went over stock management and accounting, and after lunch we gave out training completion certificates. We then interviewed each trainee one by one, and sent them home with a sample bottle of chlorine. Monday evening, we decided upon who we would hire for our first manager in Bwa Nef!

Tuesday – We got to take a breather and reflect a bit on training. We also started to turn our focus to some supply chain and equipment challenges including where to buy safe water storage buckets at a good price, and how to attach taps to them.

Wednesday – Our new jeran from Bwa Nef came over to base for orientation and we discussed what would happen during the upcoming entrepreneur aka “machan” training.

Thursday – We headed out to Bwa Nef again for our first day of entrepreneur/machan training. Seven ladies came as well as three supervisors from our supplier/manufacturing company. The supervisors conducted training this day and were super well organized and well-versed in the material they were presenting. They also came with songs and fun group rhythm/clapping exercises!

Friday – In collaboration with our Bwa Nef jeran, Kouzin Dlo conducted the second day of machan training. Our jeran is a natural leader and took the initiative to moderate conversation on difficult subjects such as pricing. At the end of the day, we gave the new machans training completion certificates as well as gave them the opportunity to buy their first bottles of chlorine to resell in the community.

Another successful week! Next week we will see what kind of sales are made in Bwa Nef, and will work on revising our training curriculum to get ready to launch in the second community, MENELAS!

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Field Dispatch: Community Chlorinators, Week 1

It was an exciting and challenging week first for the Community Chlorinators team! Here is a small taste of their work: This past Sunday, the team arrived in Port-au-Prince, and on Monday, hit the ground running. In the 5 days since then, there’s been only small challenges, and for the most part, so far so good! Monday - The team piled into the car and headed out to the two communities out of which we are launching the pilot. In Bwa Nef, we visited with Luc Winter of our community partner, RAJEPRE. We observed water sources and learned that people mostly buy water from municipal DINEPA kiosks which are usually untreated. We were also able to visit community spaces and potential spots for future trainings, meetings, and promotional events. The second community, MENELAS, is just is a stone’s throw from Bwa Nef, but has a very different water landscape. There, we visited a community school and church, Haitian Outreach Ministries, as well as a family that works closely with our second community partner, Team Tassy. The family let us know that there are private reverse osmosis water kiosks as well as free untreated wells to pump water from. Chlorine and other water treatment products are hard to come by in the community. Aside from the two planned pilot communities, we were also able to take a quick visit to a farming community, Vodrey. They have their own small-scale chlorine producing operation and we talked to them about their challanges with pricing and production. Tuesday - This day we were able to visit our supplier, Deep Springs International (DSI). DSI makes and distributes Gadyen Dlo, a stabilized liquid chlorine product. Each unit can treat 37 5-gallon buckets of water. During our visit, their training staff was able to give us valuable insights into the water treatment training they will be carrying out for our entrepreneurs and we purchased our first order of chlorine! Wednesday - Training starts! Today, we welcome our first trainees to Haiti Communitere to participate in the very first Community Chlorinators Hub staff training session. Ourartners helped identify promising business ladies from both communities to participate in the training. The trainees were enthusiastic to learn more about water issues and the CC business, and market research was assigned for homework. Thursday - Willio from iLab Haiti took over for the day and conducted a Design Thinking workshop. Willio is a fantastic facilitator and was able to interact with the participants in a productive and engaging way. He helped everyone brainstorm how the Community Chlorinators business model could realistically be applied to each respective community. Friday - We continued our training with discussion about how we would regularly monitor business operations. The participants provided us with great cultural insight regarding what questions would yield accurate and useful results and what wouldn’t be well received. In conclusion, the first week went great and our potential Haitian staff contributed greatly to developing the pilot business plan. We’ve made incredible headway in this short time and have collected a great deal of information and answers to questions both anticipated and unanticipated prior to hitting the ground. Time for week #2! - Lindsay Want to learn more about Community Chlorinators / Kouzin Dlo? Visit ArchGrp.org @

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Thanks to friends old and new for supporting our crowdfunding campaign for Community Chlorinators!

http://igg.me/at/archgrp

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Ask Us Anything!

J: I have to say that I'm confused about how creating a market for what should be a public, free commodity is moving away from traditional aid strategies. This displaces the cost of clean water to destitute and vulnerable populations and actually might miss the most at-risk populations because they will be the ones who cannot pay for it and will be the hardest to reach. How will the chlorine salesmen be incentivized to reach these most at-risk when they cannot pay? From a rights perspective, the communities should be provided with free potable water to create a demand for free potable water. How might your project create a demand for free potable water?

Faith: Thanks so much for reaching out! The two communities we are working in have told us that their residents pay 20% of their income (~ what people in the US pay on rent) just for clean water even though there is a free local well. They don't use the well because the water is contaminated due to an almost universal lack of toilets.

Community Chlorinators is a low cost solution (2% of their income) that will allow them to clean the well water. This will save the households a lot of money while engaging the community to help itself.

The bottom line is that it is a sustainable option that won't rely on large inflows of outside capital and is sustained by local demand and benefits local entrepreneurs! There are few to no projects have that focus!

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Archimedes Project

Access to clean water is the most significant barrier to development. The Archimedes Project leverages technology, ideas and capacity to build lean, scalable water and sanitation enterprises worldwide.  1 billion people lack access to clean water. 2.5 billion lack access to sanitation. Every year, this shortfall in infrastructure causes millions of deaths, and billions of dollars in lost economic productivity.  Many organizations have attempted to solve this problem using heavy top-down approaches that ignore local capacity. We are building the next generation of water organizations. Organizations that are designed using the lessons learned and best practices from the efforts that preceded it.  We believe that leveraging existing water and sanitation technology, tested business models and local expertise, in combination with a relentless focus on scale, is the solution to water and sanitation for the world.  To that end, we collect the best technology and case studies of the most effective solutions. Using this information and a cadre of local partners, we incubate revenue generating social enterprises that will build large scale water or sanitation solutions for the bottom of the pyramid. As a co-founder, we connect that organization with partners and supporters and help then measure their impact.

This summer, we are launching Community Chlorinators in Haiti. Over the last four months, this enterprise has grown from an idea on paper to a reality that will be launched on the ground this summer. We have helped the entrepreneur design an evaluation program and get grants and fellowships including an invitation to be a commitment maker at Clinton Global Initiative University.

Archimedes said that one man could move the world with a long enough lever and a firm point on which to place it. Join us. Move the World.

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Haiti from Space

Courtesy of NASA

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New York Police Department Officers train local officers in Haiti

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Community Chlorinators Summer Fellowship

Join us this summer for the exciting and challenging launch of our social enterprise Community Chlorinators!

The Archimedes Project is searching for highly-qualified Fellows interested in social enterprise  to support the launch of its pilot clean water enterprise, Community Chlorinators, in Haiti this summer. Fellows will have the opportunity to help establish a  community based enterprise, support the training of local entrepreneurs and assist with our monitoring and evaluation efforts.

On the ground, Fellows will join the dedicated Community Chlorinators  team and work with our partners to train micro-entrepreneurs from the community, assist in collecting baseline and follow-up data from individual households, and host events within the community to raise awareness about the importance of clean water and Community Chlorinators’ solution.

Fellows will join in the Archimedes Project launch team in Haiti from mid-June to late-August. Prior to traveling to Haiti, each Fellow must work with the team to raise the $3,000 fellowship fee which will cover all of their travel and in-country expenses throughout the summer. The Archimedes Project is looking for Fellows with an interest in health, international development and social enterprise, prior travel and/or work experience in developing countries, and Haitian Creole or French language skills.

To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter stating why you want to participate in the Community Chlorinators pilot launch and what you would bring to the team to contact@archimedesproject.com

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Quench the thirst of the world with Archimedes Project's newest social enterprise - buy one give one bacon water!

We are proud to offer this fantastic new product in conjunction with our partners! Your purchase of Archimedes Project branded Bacon Water will provide delicious and life saving bacon water to families in need across Haiti. 

Support the health of a child. Buy water flavored like delicious bacon Today!.

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Brainstorming vs. Brainswarming. 

Great video explaining brainswarming: A new way of generating ideas in a group using a structured graph.

via harvardbusinessreview

How many times have you been in a brainstorming session this week? Chances are the answer is, “More than I can count.” But no study has proven that brainstorming works well, even though it has been the go-to method for idea generation since 1953.

But there is an alternative. After researching why brainstorming inhibits creativity and innovation, my colleagues and I came up with a new process we call Brainswarming. 

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Building a successful social enterprise takes hard work and dedication. Dr. Valentin Abe has built the Caribbean Harvest Foundation to, literally, seed fish farming in Lake Azeui in Haiti.

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