Sasha has been in Haiti since 2004 when she was finishing my doctoral research. With her work focusing on ecology and human rights, she came to realize that the most prevalent human rights abuse is the inaccessibility to basic services that we take for granted. She had a previous interest in toilets from a nutrient-cycle perspective so in 2006 she founded SOIL and our EcoSan initiative in Cap-Haitien. After the 2010 earthquake they expanded to Port-au-Prince. SOIL is a nonprofit organization in Haiti dedicated to protecting soil resources by providing ecological sanitation services and turning human waste into nutrient-rich compost.

Now, Sasha Kramer is fighting Haitis most pressing health, economic, and environmental problems, one toilet at a time. Kramer tracks rural and urban pilot programs to determine the most effective way to manage, finance, and ultimately turn projects over to Haitis own government or entrepreneurs. We have to demonstrate results to create demand, she stresses. In fact, word has spread and communities across the nation clamor for Ecosan toilets.

Ecology, Haiti, National geographic