Rotarian works to help people of Haiti
Project aims to provide wells for drinking water
Three wells that local Rotarians have raised money to build will help bring the people of Haiti, including these schoolchildren, access to clean drinking water in the wake of an earthquake that has left many people living long-term in refugee camps.
With an epicenter about 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince on Haiti, the magnitude 7.0 earthquake crumbled much of the nation’s infrastructure. Various agencies estimate the death toll at 200,000 to 350,000 people, with more than 3 million affected.
After the earthquake, the country was stricken with a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 6,500 people and sickened hundreds of thousands more, according to the Haiti health ministry.
Downtown Rotary Club of Salem member Cynthia Witham, who was touched by the tragedy, launched the Haiti Well Project, an effort to provide clean drinking water to the people of Haiti.
“The idea came because of my granddaughter, who was adopted six years ago from Haiti,” Witham said. “Rotary and my Downtown Salem Rotary World Service Committee provided the perfect opportunity to coordinate a project that could give something back to Haiti, which had personally given me a granddaughter.”
Three 200-foot-deep wells will provide a stable source of sanitary water for drinking and gardening to Haitians in the area of Hinche, a city 75 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, Witham said. The wells will aid almost 17,000 people.
Potable water is necessary because many of the more than 1 million people who lost homes in the quake and were stationed in disaster camps after the quake still have no access to clean drinking water. Cholera, which kills 5 percent of the people it infects, is a diarrheal illness usually found in water or food sources that have been contaminated by feces, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Witham is one of the many people worldwide who reached out to Haiti, but to make her project happen, she needed a little help. That’s when her fellow Rotarians offered their support.
The Salem Downtown, Keizer, Salem Sunrise, Dallas, Wilsonville, Columbia County and Florence rotary clubs joined together to raise $9,000, which was matched by Rotary International District 5100. The district encompasses the northern third of Oregon and a portion of southwest Washington.
The Rotary Foundation provided another match, bringing the total to $30,000, which was enough to begin plunging drills into the earth. Rotarians are keeping an eye on the project and reporting back to the other clubs.
One well already has been drilled, and a building to store a water tank is being constructed. The others will be done within the next two months.
The intent is to provide long-term assistance instead of just donating canisters of drinking water, Witham said.
Within the next year, she and her family plan to visit Haiti, where they have done charitable work before.
jbdaley@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6714 or follow at twitter.com/JillianDaleySJ
