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POWER, it's what's around the corner.
by Jenn Schenk
When a group of volunteers arrived in Haiti early last week I was secretly hoping they would turn out to be expert electricians. Wouldn't that be great? They could travel with me around the city of Cap Haitien, tell me what electrical wires to buy and then install a simple electrical system around the campus. Right now we have nothing. I sprung the question on them the first night. Unfortunately none of them felt comfortable with the assignment. "We could do it," they said, "but we might do it wrong."
Not exactly the response I was looking for.
Then one of the visitors, Bryan, proposed what I would call, a genius plan. Bryan Wilson is a missionary with Flying Mission Zambia but was able to join the team in Haiti for a week since he is currently enjoying a year of respite in the States. His plan was to contact some friends of his at I-TEC a mission organization that installed a solar system for him in Zambia. Having been a missionary pilot for 15 years, Bryan has flown all types of professionals to the remote areas of Africa where they will serve. With so many connections he makes it a personal mission to connect organizations with needs to the people who can meet them.
With Second Mile Haiti's need for power and I-TEC's experience in designing and building solar systems around the world, Bryan decided to give them a call. If nothing else, maybe they could help us with some baseline information. The first phone call was very productive and resulted in a plan for how to estimate the electrical needs of our compound.
On his second call Bryan asked whether the group might be able to send a team to Second Mile Haiti to install the system. I-TEC travels to some-30 different countries each year to meet far more complicated demands. Projects like ours usually fall to waiting lists of 6-months at minimum. But that wasn't the response Bryan got. "Funny you mention it" says the man at I-TEC. "I got a call, not ten minutes ago from a hospital near you. Their need is an urgent one." I knew which hospital he was referring too so I quickly let Bryan know that it would take less than 10 minutes to get from our site to theirs. "Hmm.. might be a God thing," said Tom at I-TEC. Two requests, 10 minutes apart, situated less than 10 miles apart. That was a pretty big deal.
Bryan and the reps at I-TEC continued to talk. Normally the group sends a team of surveyors to do the initial planning. But with Bryan on the ground in Haiti, we were able to do the initial measurements and drawings, effectively avoiding that initial step.
A few phone calls and a few days later, we got word that a trip to Haiti was looking more and more like a solid plan. Since then, I-TEC has now had a 3rd request from Haiti meaning that follow-up trips aren't out of the question either. Because the nearby hospital has such an urgent need I-TEC has agreed to come at their earliest opening, just 3 weeks from now! This is a huge opportunity for Second Mile to have technicians of this caliber install a solar power and electrical system.
Tom and Bill (I-TEC) are finalizing an estimate of costs for a 6,000 watt system for our facilities. Just as soon as we can get the funds to them they will build the system in the States and ship it to Haiti.
We are waiting for those numbers so that we know how much to raise for the solar component.
In the meantime we must raise funds for, and purchase, a 10K-W
diesel generator, batteries, and all of the electrical components for that system. We must work fast to be prepared for their April visit.
If you would like to be involved in funding this need please contact me at jenn@secondmilehaiti.com
Praise God for this amazing opportunity!
To learn more about the ministry of I-TEC visit their website: itec.org
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Here I-TEC installs a similar system for a hospital in Papua New Guinea
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