Gadyen Dlo (Haitian Kréyol, meaning Water Guardian) is the brand used by DSI for a Haitian managed and manufactured safe water solution–it’s a liquid product placed into a sealed container in the user’s home (i.e., at the “point of use”). This system is inexpensive compared to other methods, and is the most local model operating in Haiti providing safe water to rural Haitians while creating sustainable jobs.
Process
Represented in the diagram below, DSI sources containers (5 gallon buckets) from a local Haitian manufacturer. The raw materials for these buckets are either purchased based DSI, or, at times, are donated by corporations such as NovaChem. DSI’s technicians then assemble the Gadyen Dlo safe water systems by installing CDC-preferred spigots. DSI procured small bottles to contain the Gadyen Dlo solution from outside of Haiti (albiet we are in constant contact awaiting local production of this crucial supply). DSI technicians in the communities then generate the Gadyen Dlo solution, and distribute it into the communities utilizing the specific business model determined by the community and local entrepreneurs. Haitian families then treat water in their homes, providing safe water at the point of use with a low risk of contamination after treatment.
Health Care Worker distributing Gadyen Dlo to a Haitian family
As mentioned on the Homepage, a UNICEF evaluation in March 2010 showed the Save the Children – DSI intervention to be technologically sound, simple to use, appropriately targeted, and adequately adopted in the home. Of water samples from 182 households in the catchment area, 79% had positive chlorine residual at the time of an unannounced visit. Among those who used chlorine, 81% showed improvement in E. coli contamination compared to untreated water samples from the same home.
One family and their Gadyen Dlo system
Rural versus Urban
DSI’s Gadyen Dlo model focuses on rural communities for several reasons:
- The burden of deaths for children under 5 years of age is 1.7 times greater in rural than urban areas
- Poverty is highly associated with rural areas in Haiti (67% in rural areas live on <$1 per day, and 88% live on <$2 per day)
- Centralized infrastructure projects make community purification difficult, if not impossible, to sustain in certain areas
- In many remote areas, household water treatment and storage (HWTS) is the only feasible option for ensuring adequate water quality in the user’s cup
- Reverse osmosis systems have achieved profitable models for urban, high population density areas, but remain too costly for rural areas
- All options (water supply, treatment, sanitation, and hygiene) are effective, but as a general rule communities are most effective if they start with one solution and leverage to others
- HWTS is highly cost-effective, sustainable, and scalable
- HWTS is often the most feasible option in remote areas of Haiti with low population density
- HWTS is a good fit for projects that focus on specific communities in the absence of quality infrastructure and coordinated government or NGO efforts
- HWTS adds value to other interventions, especially water supply (i.e., treatment in the home after using an improved source ensures that health benefits are not lost to contamination between the source and point-of-use)
Stage I – Education
At DSI, we call Education Stage I or Program I, because we know that the long-term positive impact of the Gadyen Dlo model necessitates well-trained entrepreneurs, community leaders, and hearts warm to the changing local needs of rural Haitians. We not only educate our employees but have historically also reached into local schools to train children on business and safe water principals. Now provided by a partner organization, DSI’s co-founder Ruth Entwistle developed a business curriculum and training workshops for grade school teachers that empowers young Haitians to become effective entrepreneurs. Mrs. Entwistle and DSI’s partner also assists in providing the resources and support necessary to carry out these new programs successfully.
Stage II – Expansion Strategies
DSI’s Gadyen Dlo business model (select Strategy) is expanding through 3 different methods determined by matching local demand with initial start-up funding: (IIA) empowering “positive deviants,” (IIB) NGO partnering, and (IIC) relief aid.
IIA – Positive Deviance
Briefly and generally, positive deviance is founded on the principals that communities have the solutions to their problems, that they are the best experts to solve their problems, and that through organization and dissemination of collective intelligence a local community can create behavior or social change to improve itself in a sustainable manor. DSI seeks out those in their rural communities who are excelling with the same lack of resources and seeks to replicate their success by empowering the community with education and dissemination of collective intelligence on safe water habits. They may adopt and adapt the Gadyen Dlo model to fit their community needs and demands–creating jobs and saving lives. If desired by the community, DSI can arranged for start up capital (goods or finances) or microfinancing.
IIB – NGO Partnering
DSI partners with NGOs to bring the Gadyen Dlo model of locally-produced water purification systems into areas with established networks of health workers or other Haitians who can produce, distribute, and monitor the proper use of Gadyen Dlo. The Gadyen Dlo model turns what would do good by providing safe water to families into a sustainable safe water solution that also creates local jobs that exist independent of charitable donations.
Example: The Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti and DSI’s support of parish partnerships. When requested by NGOs, church groups, or other organizations, DSI can quickly identify a communities’ need for safe water, develop a game plan with local leaders to adapt the Gadyen Dlo system to a specific region or community, and begin the production and distribution of Gadyen Dlo to the beneficiaries. Two examples of this type of expansion plan are the 2,500 families the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti has supported in the Leogane area and the over 15,000 families supported across Haiti by US Catholic parishes that are matched with safe water needs in Haiti Catholic Parishes.
IIC – Relief Aid
In addition to on-going charitable efforts in Haiti and other developing countries, periodic and tragic natural disasters strike and impact the impoverished in devastating ways and we all collectively focus our attention on these areas of tragedy and need. DSI serves in these times of tragedy to ensure the poorest of the poor have access to the most basic of needs–safe water. And, DSI wants to make sure that as the immediate impact of a tragedy lessens that it has served in way that is sustainable long after the shock has warn off. The sustainable business model of Gadyen Dlo works in relief aid situations, providing jobs and clean water in the midst of the storm that will be sustained into the future for impacted communities.
Example: Partnering with Save the Children (and assisted by a large donation from Lanxess), DSI was able to provide over 15,000 families (approximately 70,000 individuals) with safe water in the wake of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Based on immediate demands, initial systems were distributed with Aquatabs, however, in August 2010, the Gadyen Dlo system began producing its local safe water solution to ensure that these rural persons outside of aid camps in the Leogane Corridor would be served with safe water and continue creating job opportunities. Watch the feature video about this project here on UNICEF TV. The following is a sample chart depicting the number of families served in this program:
Stage III – Transitioning from Aid to Independence
As discussed, the Gadyen Dlo model is based on the principal that the impact of unsafe water and unemployment can be combatted together. Once a Gadyen Dlo safe water system is on a families’ home, Gadyen Dlo is produced locally and distributed at a price equal to or less than the cost of other safe water systems on the market or sold by NGOs. By producing Gadyen Dlo locally, DSI ensures rural communities receive the greatest potential health and economic impact of safe water.
We maintain a complex decision matrix that has been developed through experience and guides DSI’s determination of the financial, human, and health impact quality of each Gadyen Dlo community that is in the transition stage.
We have also developed pricing models to help local communities determine the appropriate price at which Gadyen Dlo can be sold in a way that both ensures safe water is provided to those in need and creates local jobs. One demand is not sacrificed for another.
Example: In Jolivert, DSI is transitioning a safe water program serving over 5,000 families (i.e., over 20,000 Haitians) to independence. With its own employees and management in place, DSI now only provides monitoring and advice to ensure the Gadyen Dlo business model is working for the local community.
Stage IV – Sustainable Enterprise
And, the ultimate goal of the DSI Gadyen Dlo program is that Haitian entrepreneurs are able to independently manage and operating safe water systems throughout rural Haiti. Based on various demographics (e.g., population density, infrastructure, and economic climate), the Gadyen Dlo business model is adjusted to ensure local communities are served appropriately in a manor that will continue long into the future. DSI provides Gadyen Dlo systems at this stage continuing education and a predictable resource for ideas and collaboration.
Example: Les Cayes
