As we’ve come into 2024 we have had a lot of people reach out and ask us if Clean Water for Haiti is still working, and the answer is a resounding YES! If you’ve been following us for any length of time, you know that 2022 & 2023 brought a lot of changes for us. Read on to find out what’s changed and how we’re navigating the challenges of Haiti now.
In 2022 the Rolling family, our long time in-country Directors, had to make the difficult decision to move their family out of Haiti due to the insecurity. Initially we thought it could be the end of Clean Water for Haiti’s presence in Haiti, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Johnson Alexandre, who serves as a member of our Haiti Board of Directors, and who has worked with the organization for many years, was asked to step into the role as Executive Director for Haiti, and he agreed! The Rollings worked with him to train him on day to day operations before leaving Haiti.
Chris & Leslie moved their family to Vancouver, WA. Because the work that needed to be done outside of Haiti was largely administrative, and work that Leslie was already doing, it made the most sense to move Leslie into the role of Executive Director for the US & Canada. Chris stepped back from a formal role and continues to serve on the Board of Directors, assists with fundraising and speaking engagements, and continues to consult with Alexandre as needed to encourage and support him in his role.
Johnson Alexandre, or Alexandre as he likes to be called, has worked with Clean Water for Haiti since 2009. Chris and Leslie met him after another missionary connected them when the Rollings needed help navigating some challenging legal issues. Alexandre worked with the Haitian National Police (PNH) for many years and eventually started helping missionaries and expats navigate Haiti’s challenging legal and government systems. Over the years Alexandre became one of Chris & Leslie’s most trusted friends in Haiti, and he helped the organization navigate everything from keeping documents and registration status up to date to taking care of legal issues when they arose. Chris & Leslie will be the first to tell you that without Alexandre’s help Clean Water for Haiti wouldn’t be the organization it is today.
Alexandre is a person of integrity and character, and is the perfect person to help CWH move through this next phase. He has the same deep desire as Chris & Leslie to see the people of Haiti get access to clean water, and he knows firsthand the impact that the work we’re doing makes. Since taking over as Executive Director Alexandre has done a phenomenal job leading our Haiti operations.
At the start of 2023 none of us knew what to expect. There were so many questions, and so many unknowns. Could Alexandre do it? What would happen with the filter program? What would the new structure of the organization look like and how would it work? What about Haiti? What was going to happen in country?
We’re happy to report that while things in Haiti continued to get worse and more challenging, as an organization we’ve transitioned so much better than any of us expected. In fact, we’re calling it a huge success! Alexandre has settled into his new role so well, and has done a fabulous job of keeping our filter program running in very challenging times. He and Leslie work together as partners with different roles and responsibilities. Most of the work that Leslie did while living in Haiti was challenging because she was doing it remotely to support the US & Canadian branches of the organization. Being based in the US has made things a lot easier in many ways. It’s also much easier for Chris & Leslie to do in person events and to connect with supporters than it was while living in Haiti.
We’re continuing to get filters to families who need them, and we’re REALLY proud of that. But, it hasn’t been easy. Over the past year gangs have continued to take over more and more of the country, and have moved into the region where Clean Water for Haiti is located and the communities we’ve served for over two decades. In the past we were able to work all over the Artibonite Valley and along the Route Nationale 1 corridor to the outskirts of Port au Prince. These areas are mostly closed off to our team now and unsafe to travel to. We’re focusing our work in our local area between St. Marc and Montrouis. While it’s discouraging to see how much our delivery radius has shrunk, there’s still no shortage of families needing filters, and we’re doing our best to make sure we can get them into homes.
With the insecurity and gangs controlling most of the country it’s made it difficult for materials and supplies to move from the capital and the ports to the provinces and rural areas. There have been times in the past year where Alexandre and our team struggled to get the materials needed to build filters. When the opportunity is there they now stock up and get as much as they can, then focus on production. In the same vein, our follow-up program that has us doing repeat visits to each filter we install has been challenging, simply because we can’t do visits to filters further away that have been in use for longer periods of time. Our hope is that those filters are still being well used by the households that have them, and providing a much needed resource in a time where those families have access to so little right now. We know owning a filter helps set a family up for crisis moments, and we’re hoping that the thousands of filters that are in homes are helping people weather this time in Haiti’s history. The filters that we have been able to visit are being used and are providing clean water for the families that own them.
How is it that Clean Water for Haiti has managed to keep operating when so many other organizations have had to either drastically scale back, or close their doors all together? Well, it’s a lot of things combined.
As Clean Water for Haiti grew, we chose to stay really focused in our work. We’ve always operated from the perspective of doing one thing, and doing it really well. Constantly taking stock and evaluating, and tweaking things as we went to always be improving. We focused on building a strong foundation, both for our programs and operations in Haiti, and for the organization as a whole. At the Board level we made sure we had good governance in place and that everyone clearly knew what their roles and responsibilities were. Our Board has always looked to our in-country staff and recognized they were in the best position to determine what needed to be done day to day, and asked, “What do you need?” Then they went to work to make sure those resources were there. Today our goal is to make sure that Alexandre and our team have everything they need to continue to succeed.
As we developed our programs we always did so in the context of Haiti and considered everything from culture to politics to logistics. Being on the ground day in and day out allowed the Rollings to create a program that really worked for Haiti, rather than trying to take a program model and force it into a context that came with a unique set of challenges. Because of that, our program has become one of the most effective in Haiti over the years, and has been able to transition through new leadership while keeping the important things the important things.
Lastly, we have great facilities. When we were developing our property in Camp Marie we made decisions that just made more sense economically over the long term, having no idea how well they would serve us through these hard years. One of our major investments was a solar system that provided enough power to run our entire compound. We also dug a well on site with large pumps to provide all the water we needed for filter production and preparing materials for installations. Being completely off grid not only saved us money over the years, but when fuel shortages started to happen back in 2019 CWH was able to keep operating. We weren’t dependent on fuel for running a generator for electricity or pumping water.
We keep moving forward. While we can’t know what Haiti will do as a country, or have any control over what challenges the current state of things will bring, we can still keep doing the best we can as an organization. Alexandre has proven to be a very capable and effective leader for this new chapter of Clean Water for Haiti, and we have full faith in his ability to continue to lead the organization through whatever challenges arise.
In mid-January our Board of Directors met in person for our annual retreat. During this weekend that we set aside for taking stock and setting goals there was a very different feeling than there was at the same time last year. In 2023 everything felt very raw and fragile, and uncertain. This year there was a sense of hope because we saw that as far as the organization was concerned, we were solid. Everything held. Everything kept moving and working. All of the work for over two decades had paid off, and we’re really proud of that. We’re seeing the fruits of our labour and are looking forward.
At the Board level we can very clearly see that as always, our role is to ask, “What do you need?” And then it’s our job to make sure that Alexandre and our team in Haiti have those resources. We may not be able to control Haiti, but we can do everything possible to make sure our team is equipped as much as possible to respond to whatever comes their way.
The faithful support of our regular donors has meant we’ve had the resources to keep our team working over the past year, and we’re so grateful for that! We’ve also been contacted by a variety of new people, organizations, and groups wanting to know how they can be involved, and we’re so incredibly encouraged by that. It’s been a huge affirmation to us that people care about Haiti and see the value of what we’re doing.
If you’d like to know more about what we do as an organization this site is a wealth of information, but we’d also love to connect with you. Feel free to reach out to either Chris or Leslie to learn more about what we do and how you can be involved. They love to connect over email, a phone call, a Zoom call, and in person events. You can also sign up for our monthly emails to stay up to date on everything happening and what the needs are.
Leslie Rolling
Executive Director for Canada & the US
lrolling@cleanwaterforhaiti.org
360-567-8647
Chris Rolling
Board of Directors
crolling@cleanwaterforhaiti.org
360-713-3647
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