Rod Huebbers Clean Water Fund

Providing clean water to poor families in Haiti in honor of Rod Huebbers, Executive Vice President of Inova Health System and Community Coalition for Haiti Board of Directors. Click here to donate. 100% of donations received go to support well drilling, well repair and installation of clean water systems.

The least developed country in the Western Hemisphere; Haiti remains the fifth poorest in the world. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is the second leading cause of death for local children, just behind starvation. Although, clean water remains unavailable to over 1.7 billion people worldwide (28 percent of the world population), the numbers are even more staggering in Haiti. In 2004, 46 percent of the total population had no access to drinking water. This statistic is compounded further by the fact that 80% of the 5.2 million rural Haitians must travel great distances to remote locations to collect water, much of which is still subject to contamination from animals and people. Haiti ranked last out of 147 nations in water access, environmental and living conditions.

The lack of drinkable water in Haiti is a major health, growth and economic problem. Water borne disease epidemics and infant mortality (80 per 1,000 births) are often directly related to the poor quality of drinking water. Lack of basic sanitation indirectly inhibits school attendance and therefore learning opportunities as school children spend countless hours fetching water. Women, the backbone of the Haitian workforce, are unduly burdened with the same daily drudgery, limiting available work time and productivity. Water attributed illnesses and inordinate collection effort significantly impedes the population’s ability to sustain itself.