17607: Lemieux: Wichita Eagle: Kansas group helps Haiti explore a solar alternative (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

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 Posted on Tue, Dec. 30, 2003

With plant, Kansas group helps Haiti explore a solar
alternative
BY STAN FINGER
Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT) - It began with dehydrated soup for children in
Haiti, and spoons to eat it with. Now a joint project of
Wichita Rotary and Inter-Faith Ministries is about to take
a quantum leap forward.

At 1 p.m. Wednesday, volunteers will begin loading
containers at the parking lot of the former ShopKo store in
west Wichita with the components needed for an assembly
plant that will be built in Lambert, Haiti.

The plant will construct solar ovens for use by residents
of the desperately poor Caribbean nation, where wood from
rapidly diminishing forested areas is the main source of
heating.

"It's a big undertaking, and it's a very exciting
undertaking," said the Rev. Sam Muyskens, executive
director of Inter-Faith Ministries.

The plant should be completed by mid-March, when local
employees will begin assembling 300 metal ovens and 500
cardboard "training" ovens.

Haitian families will learn how to cook with the cardboard
ovens before being sold the metal ovens, Muyskens said. The
ovens use solar power, achieving temperatures of 360 to 400
degrees while still remaining cool enough on the exterior
that children won't be burned if they touch it.

The ovens, manufactured by Sun Ovens International, are
already used in 126 countries around the world. Besides
cooking food, the ovens can be used to pasteurize water.

"There are so many ways that this is going to be helpful,"
said Joanne McClelland, a member of the Downtown Rotary's
board of directors.

Haiti's average life expectancy is under 50, making it the
lowest in the Americas, and the country has the highest
infant and toddler mortality rates in the Americas.

Eighty percent of the population lives in abject poverty.

The project gives Haitians an economical and
environmentally friendly way to prepare meals, Muyskens
said.

"They cook over charcoal, which creates a lot of smoke,
which also causes cancer among the women - particularly
lung cancer," he said.

Local contributions plus a $40,400 matching grant from the
Rotary Foundation are financing the solar oven plant.

Two large solar ovens are already being used in Lambert,
cooking the meals for the children in a school opened as
part of Inter-Faith's project, dubbed A.S.A.P. Haiti.

When they are done cooking the meals, the ovens bake bread
that local residents then sell to provide an income for
themselves.

The project has also opened a medical clinic in Lambert and
shipped dental equipment for a clinic still on the drawing
board.

"We're trying to kind of create an `island of prosperity,'
an example in Haiti where people can create a
self-sustaining neighborhood," Muyskens said.

McClelland said the local Rotary decided to become involved
after then-president Geri Appel said she'd like the
organization to take on an international project.

Inter-Faith's A.S.A.P. Haiti project was adopted,
McClelland said, "because the need was so great and we
already knew the people who were involved."

Other organizations working in Haiti are interested in the
solar ovens, McClelland said, so they could soon spread
elsewhere in the island nation.

"It's one of those things that has taken off on its own,"
Muyskens said. "It's a mission of the heart."

---

© 2003, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).



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