However, I have received this heartfelt plea through my extended family.  The Haitian Development Fund is a small and lean organisation that operates a small medical clinic in Port – Au – Prince.  In a great stroke of luck this clinic was largely spared during the recent earthquake and is now providing round the clock medical assistance.  If you have a moment, please read the letter from co-founder Greg Richmond and make a contribution to their valuable work – I have.

Sunny

Friends,

Just hours ago I learned that my friend Dr. Moise Cely has survived the

earthquake in Haiti.  Not only has Moise survived, but so has our

medical clinic in the Sarthe neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where he

has been treating hundreds of patients since the earthquake.  This is

amazing news for which I am so thankful.

In 2001, after visiting the slums of Port-au-Prince with my friend Brent

DeLand, Brent and I and another colleague started a non-profit

organization called the Haitian Development Fund.  Over the past nine

years, we have raised thousands of dollars, all of which has been used

to operate Dr. Moise’s clinic in a shanty town in Port-au-Prince.  With

the support of good friends and foundations, we are the sole source of

support for this clinic.

When the earthquake hit Haiti this week, I immediately feared that the

clinic had collapsed.  By Saturday morning, when we hadn’t heard from

Moise, I started to fear he hadn’t survived.  But not only have the

clinic and Moise made it through the earthquake, our clinic has been one

of the few Port-au-Prince medical facilities that survived and continued

to treat patients.  For this, we are extremely thankful.

I ask you to visit our website, www.hdfund.org, to learn more about our

work and to make a contribution to enable us to continue our work in

this time of unprecedented need.

Thank you so much.

Greg Richmond

NACSA

Click on the title above to see our latest video update.

Happy New Year everyone!

Every now and again we are asked if volunteers can come and assist us here on the ground in Laos.  I look forward to the day when I can say YES.  We are working to have our training center up, running, and able to host volunteers but it will be a while before this is complete.

In the meanwhile I would like to recommend the Vang Vieng Organic Farm as a great place to stay and volunteer for a while.  I have been there dozens of times and have really enjoyed working on their mudbrick house building projects.  Anyone who enjoys cooking might be glad to hear that they have just completed the kitchen of Peter’s mud house.  It now has an earth PIZZA OVEN!.  The video above was taken a few years ago when they were first making the bulk of the mudbricks.

For details of the farm or mudbrick house building projects please follow these links:

http://www.laofarm.org/

http://earthbricker.wordpress.com/

Take care

Click here to view the embedded video.

Please click on ‘Ceramic Water Filters Video Update’ to view video.

Please click on ‘Ceramic and Inversed Water Filters Video Update’ to view video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also checked on Noukham. She is having some trouble with the concrete mould. The clay is sticky and is sticking to the inside of the mould. She has tried charcoal but it didn’t work. I am going to make a new mould that will split into a few sections, so that it is easier to remove the formed filter from it.

3/12
Today I passed over the garbage bin filter to Elizabeth (the Khammu researcher). She is going to work out the best way for us to explain how it works to the Khammu villagers. She will also be looking at other ways to adapt it to the local conditions.

One of her field workers is heading to the rural areas on Saturday. I am passing over our DVD and also some laminated pictures to him and he will approach the villagers. He is canvassing them to see who is interested in returning with him to Vientiane to study pottery with Noukham.

4/12
Today I met with Dr. Rob Gray who works for Population Services International (PSI). They are experts in conducting surveys to determine the factors which are preventing behaviour change.

Their techniques have been developed over the last forty years and they have also borrowed market survey techniques from the marketing industry, one technique is called the Coca Cola technique. It looks like this technique will give us a good framework for our work with the villages.

I have a lot of reading and learning to do. At some stage this might even make a good blog post. I am also dropping off the pictures and DVD’s to the Khammu outreach worker this evening or in the morning.

8/12
I spent this afternoon at Doug’s working on:
the test rig to test the flow rate through the filters under different pressures. (This was the thorn in the side issue, but we are chipping away at it and the last version almost worked)

Preparing the next batch of clay (from the brick factory) for Noukham. When I last spoke to her she thought that the clay from the brick factory would be suitable for her use. This is promising and we are forming a second batch of filters this week. The first batch will be ready to fire either next weekend or later that week.

We finished off the 2nd version of the cement mould. This new one has the inner mould on the bottom and it can also spin. This is so that the filters can be hand formed around that mould. We shot some video so it should make more sense with a picture – later this week.

We welded up a big pounding stick so that it was easier to pound the brick clay. This clay dries rock hard and Noukham gave us feedback last week that it was very time consuming for her son to crush it in the mortar and pestle.

I just scheduled a teleconference with Gaston Schmits from www.aidscompetence.org – we will talk about facilitative methods of working with the local community. He is based in Chiang Mai and I met him last year after the meditation retreat.

MIT IDC are now on board

Meeting with a Dutch guy who is representing www.getitdone.org he is keen to get us some support from them

There is a another Dutch guy who is helping out with a funding application to the United Nations Development Program small grants fund

Our pilot village in Atthapeu was affected by the flooding

I am arranging for the new CARE Provincial Program Coordinator to come out to see the filters planned for the next fortnight

Submitted the AusAID proposal in partnership with Health Unlimited http://www.healthunlimited.org/Home

5-9 Wednesday: visited Nou Kham and examined the last firing. The pot is slightly cracked and we discussed modifications for the next filter design and firing process. Nou Kham is taking even more initiative – freely suggesting changes or even new design alternatives.

6-9 Thursday: will meet with Somchanh today to prepare a list of questions for the video interview of Nou Kham we would like to film next week after the firing.

7-9 Friday: will visit the water test laboratory that is doing the confirmation testing. Also will return out to Doug’s compound with new dry coffee grounds and design an improvised thermocouple temperature sensor.

11-9 Tuesday: Public firing on Thursday (13-11). Looking to get newspaper and government officials involved. UN and International NGO’s possibly as well.

Have rigged up a temperature sensor for the firing. We’ll see how it works on Thursday.

New pictures on the website.

New blog posts from Vicki in Tanzania. She is looking for AW partner sites. Check out the website.

We are interviewing Nou Kham on Thursday. Please send us your questions for her. We will post the interview video once it is translated.

Sunny will be covering the public firing on Twitter.

Signing official document today/tomorrow (before Thursday) — NB. this is the document that will include AW. Previously I didn’t think it would be possible, now it looks like it might be.

It took us a little while (this video was for the first half of October) but it’s up and there are plenty more updates on their way.  Watch this space.

Please click on ‘First Video Update’ to view video.

Click here to view the embedded video.