St. Pierre parish,
Baradères, Haiti
Sister parish of St. John the Baptist, Silver
Spring, Md.
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With this backdrop of projects that the Sister Parish Committee has been discussing, I find myself thinking more and more about water, the water in Haiti in general and in Baradères in particular. Last year I tested several sources of drinking water in the town and they were all contaminated with fecal coliforms. These are bacteria that indicate contamination with human and animal waste and thus probably microbes that cause diseases such as diarrhea. On this trip I met with the Chemistry teacher at the school to show him and his students how to use the water testing kits that I brought. The teacher and the students were excited! We organized the 18 students into nine teams for the project. Each team will be assigned water source that they will be responsible for sampling and testing twice a month. They have enough testing kits to continue monitoring the water until June. I reasoned that engaging the students in the project might stimulate a better awareness of the importance of clean drinking water to public health. I suspect that the data the students will collect will show again that the water is contaminated. The next question, what do we do about it?
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