SOIL is a grassroots, US-based nonprofit organization working in Haiti to develop ecological sanitation (EcoSan), where human wastes are converted into valuable compost. EcoSan, a community-identified priority, simultaneously provides improved sanitation to people who would otherwise have no access to a toilet and produces rich organic compost for agriculture and reforestation purposes. Now in use by thousands, SOIL’s EcoSan toilets and composting sites in Haiti have received international attention for being a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly, and user-approved sanitation intervention.
SOIL is also working to revive local agriculture by promoting the use of EcoSan compost and other sustainable farming methods. Haiti was once known as “the Pearl of the Antilles” for its incredible productive capacity, but decades of deforestation and poverty have eroded and depleted the land. SOIL’s agricultural team researches low-cost, sustainable practices to increase food production, improve rural livelihoods, and return Haiti to agricultural abundance.
A 2021 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network supported SOIL’s household sanitation program.
A 2019 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network helped SOIL provide servicing to nine public ecological toilets serving over 2,700 people in one of Haiti’s most impoverished urban communities in Cap-Haitien.
A 2016 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network supported SOIL’s humanitarian public sanitation program.
A 2015 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network supported SOIL’s humanitarian public sanitation program. The group’s public toilets keep critical, safe sanitation services open for some of the most vulnerable people in the country and play a frontline role in fighting childhood waterborne disease. As a result of this collaboration, 900 people gained access to a clean SOIL public toilet everyday, seventy-five tons of waste from the toilets were removed from communities and safely treated, and fifteen tons of compost were produced for agricultural and reforestation projects around Haiti.
A 2013 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network supported SOIL’s post-earthquake emergency sanitation program.
A 2014 grant supported the group’s agricultural program, enabling SOIL to scale up agricultural research activities and document findings to share with farmers, food cooperatives and other organizations supporting sustainable agriculture development in Haiti.
In addition to support from the Cultures of Resistance Network, director iara lee arranged a grant from a partner organization in 2022 which allowed the group to expand their EkoLakay household sanitation service. The program took waste from households and processed it into organic compost, transforming a public health crisis into a climate-positive environmental solution. This composting effort also helps rebuild soil health and prevents the spread of waterborne diseases.
Website: oursoil.org
