Gigi Pomerantz in Haiti.
Gigi Pomerantz was a Milwaukee-based nurse practitioner when she went to Haiti in 2006 on a medical mission. There, she was moved by the poverty and hygiene issues plaguing the country. As a reaction, she partnered with local youth to create Youthaiti—a program of ecological sanitation that expanded over the years to include hygiene education, sustainable gardening and reforestation. The organization will be sharing some of its work during Haitifest—a free, family friendly event taking place on Sunday, June 9, in Milwaukee. Pomerantz agreed to tell us more about it.
Can you tell us about Youthaiti’s work?
Sanitation projects focus on replenishing soils through composting toilets. Since our founding in 2008, we have built 31 community composting toilets and more than 450 household arborloo composting latrines. Every toilet is accompanied either by a community demonstration garden or instruction in household gardens. Our onsite Haitian experts help community members use diluted urine as fertilizer and treat composted waste as soil amendment.
After Hurricane Matthew in 2016, we established a tree nursery and have planted more than 10,000 forest and fruit trees. For a nation with just one-third of 1% land-tree cover, this is a huge deal. The drive behind all our work is health: healthier communities, less disease and increased agricultural output in healthier food options. In that vein, we expanded our hygiene education program in 2018 to include menstrual hygiene education in 20 schools to help girls stay in school post-puberty.
What have you been focusing on recently?
Hurricane Matthew devastated the area where we work in October 2016. Immediately after the hurricane, we provided shelter for 85 people, food and clean water for 1,300 families, and we ran 11 mobile medical clinics providing urgent care. Although Haiti is largely deforested, this area remains one of the few that still has some indigenous forests; we began our tree nursery shortly after the hurricane, and it continues to be a strong program. We are teaching people to graft fruit trees to produce a quicker harvest, and we are working with schools and other youth to reforest mountainous areas. Wednesday, May 1, was national Agriculture Day in Haiti, and we did a large outreach and tree planting.
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What is Haitifest?
Haitifest is Youthaiti’s first community-wide event to introduce the work of Youthaiti and the culture of Haiti to the Milwaukee community. We’ve got amazing music—Dave Wake and Peter Roller will open, followed by Bryan Rogers, Nickel&Rose and the Urbanites. We will have Haitian food, including chicken and vegetarian options and shave-ice—a special treat in the heat of Haiti. We bring in a wide variety of metal art and other crafts from Haiti, as well as a local silent auction and kids’ activities. Our program director, ‘Junior’ Pierre Oreus, will be here from Haiti.
It is a free event with donations requested at the door, and all donations are going straight to Haiti and our ongoing work there. We have a staff of 13 local Haitians who run all of our programs, so it is important to pay them a family supporting wage for the incredible work they’re doing. One-third of our budget goes to education and outreach; the rest goes toward building toilets. Each community toilet costs $4,000; each household arborloo costs $150; sustaining our tree nursery costs $3,500 a year. Our goal is to build two community toilets and 100 arborloos this year.
Haitifest takes place on Sunday, June 9, from 2-6 p.m. at the Urban Ecology Center, 1859 N. 40th St. For more information, visit youthaiti.org.
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Youthaiti's work in Haiti.
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