Locals provide support in Haiti

 

story and photos by Joel Rafkin
[email protected]

Three Arkansans, Dr. John Hoffman, Gary Hays and Chris McRae spoke to a crowd of about 70 people attending a slide show and discussion on Haiti and its people at the Fort Smith Public Library on Sunday. The speakers spoke for about 10 minutes each and opened the discussion to questions for the remainder of the hour.

Hoffman said the three men were part of a group of 19 people from five states who made a week-long mission trip in February 2011.

Hoffman’s slides documented the work of McRae and Hays as well as everyday life in post-earthquake Haiti. Of the 500 photographs he took, 24 of his best images will be on display at the library’s community room through the end of August. The show is titled “Portraits from Haiti.” Hoffman said his work on this trip was not medical in nature, although he did go to Haiti in 1989 and provided medical services.

"The goal of this exhibit is to give a platform to Chris and Gary," Hoffman said.

Hoffman took a Canon Selphy portable 4×6 photo printer and gave away copies of the pictures he made to his subjects.

"If you want to be popular in rural Haiti, just take a printer," Hoffman said as the audience chuckled. "When my printer was turned on for the pictures late in the afternoon, I could always draw a crowd," he added.

Gary Hays, co-owner of Erecta Shelters of Greenwood, is helping to reconstruct Haiti. His company manufactures prefabricated modular steel components that simply bolt together.

"With eight pieces you can build 160 different buildings from 15-foot wide to 165-foot wide," Hays said.

Hays said, "When the earthquake happened in Haiti, I saw a chance for my dream in life to come true. … Years ago, when I invented the building system, my dream was the city in a box — a building system that could be used for disasters and on this particular (event)."

Erecta invented a drive pin system to anchor the posts instead of using concrete. The 42-inch-long rods are driven three feet into the ground using a demolition hammer. The concrete slab is poured after the building is erected.

"Each set of rods holds 2,500 pounds. For a 130 mph wind load you need 7,500 pounds of holding power. Our buildings have 10,000 pounds at each column," Hays said.

Many of the buildings Hays constructs are schools. Haiti Education Foundation (Hef) provides the funding. It was founded by El Dorado, Ark. resident Frances Landers in 1981, and has constructed more than 40 schools to educate more than 10,000 students.

Hays said his goal is to empower Haitians with the skills and knowledge they need to construct their own homes and buildings and ultimately make it on their own.

Chris McRae spoke on behalf of outreach ministries Haiti Education Foundation, Living Waters for the World and Solar Under the Sun. The organizations provide education, safe filtered drinking water and electricity to impoverished areas. The technologies also work together. The solar energy provides electricity to power the water filtration systems and the schools’ electrical needs as well as power to rural areas.

"We are all about relationships. And relationships are what we try and build first because without relationships, you do not have sustainability," McRae said in reference to the ministries’ goal to provide for people in the long run.

McRae stated some staggering facts:
• An estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide have no electricity and probably never will because of the cost to deliver power.

• 28,000 to 30,000 people die each day (a person every eight seconds) from preventable causes — most of it from dirty drinking water.

• An hour of sun equals one year of energy. In one day, enough sun strikes the earth to power the entire world’s solar needs for one year.

• A single toilet flush uses three times the amount of water a Haitian would use in one day.

• A single 40-watt bulb burning for 10 hours uses more electricity than a Haitian uses in a full day.

McRae said the the only way of communication in many developing countries is via cell phone.

"For one Haitian dollar you can charge a cell phone which is about 12.5 cents (American)," he said.