Haiti Aquaponics, In Prisons
By Ken Rust
CEO Enterprise Aquatics
PART 1:
In 2021 I was solicited by Health Through Walls, an NGO, with a mission of improving health in third-world prison systems. They monitor the health and disease of incoming prisoners, and those that are exiting the system, as well as monitoring them afterwards. Malnutrition is a major health concern, especially in Haiti where the prison employees are allowed to take the food that is supplied for the prisoners. This is partly a function of the fact that they are not paid regularly. Health Through Walls provided funding for a pilot project. It was to be solar-powered and located at the prison in Fort Libert’e on the north side of the island.
I traveled there in August of 2021, after the assassination of the president delayed the first trip. They provided security and we stayed at a hotel in Cap Haitian about an hour and 15 minutes away from project site. This made for abbreviated work days, but still long days. We had a video call and photos from the work site. However, things are never exactly how they seem when you are working plans remotely and arriving at a site for the first time. The aquaculture system was going to be placed between two sea containers with a roof connecting them to form a barn. I had them purchase IBC tanks locally to work with for fish culture tanks and plastic barrels for filtration. I shipped materials to Miami where they used a freight forwarding company to get them delivered to Port Au Prince, Haiti. They were brought to the storage area for Health Through Walls and then later transported to the site, about a 6 hour trip. Sorting material after it has traveled twice and gone through customs can be frustrating. You have to go in and find all of the stuff you inventoried after it is been unloaded, reloaded, and then stored at the location. Kudos to Jean A. for all of his organizational work on this and the other projects. The prison at Fort Libert’e is the most modern prison (if you have to go to one in Haiti) built by the American government in 2016. It has 15 acres of land in addition to the prison. We were able to use IBC totes and plastic barrels to put the system together. I knew very little Creole French but tried to learn enough words common to the system and the work to explain what we were doing on a piece-by-piece basis. The team has some direct agronomy-educated individuals and then some health and administration individuals. They were great to work with and caught on fast to the processes of the build. We developed some good work relationships in a short amount of time and were able to work together well. They had a dedicated electrician taking care of the solar arrays and equipment. Some select prisoners were allowed to work with us on the site. They dug a hole for an IBC sump as well as a waste barrel. We were able to complete, and have operational, the aquaculture side of the decoupled aquaponics system. The water well was not ready and water transport was difficult on the last day but we had it running and operational. The intention was to make a deep water culture bed with cinder blocks and use an existing concrete pad up the hill. We did have problems with that since the liner was lost in shipping somewhere and the pigs that were free-roaming the farm enjoyed moving all of our blocks after we got them set up initially.
The last day on the job was the day that the earthquake hit on the south side of the country. Several people felt the tremors, but evidently I had not had enough coffee that morning.
We had found a good stopping point and reviewed operations with interpreters, charades and my terrible Kreyol French. We had lunch for the first time in the border town of Ouanaminthe. It was a beehive of activity since the border had just reopened after the assassination. This was a big change from the little restaurant in Fort Libert’e where we ate lunch at the other days which was quiet, with mostly deserted streets. After saying goodbye, I was back in the chaos of the airport and flew home. By the end of the week, we had made some relationships that would carry on for the next projects and completed an agriculture system to use for fish production and fertilizer production.
The agronomist, Frandy, was able to use the aquaponics culture water and fish waste tea to fertigate plants in a vertical system that he made with half barrels. They were able to acquire fish and keep the system running. Later, they did have a security issue where the solar array system batteries were stolen. (Someone stole the batteries on prison property and left with them…let that soak in.) After this incident, they then, secured the project with steel bars in a gate. They did lose a fish crop in the process and then restarted to continue with success.
The bottom line was that with a good team, we were able to build a system in 6 days, and increased and diversified food production for the prison.
In 2022 we received notice that after evaluation of the pilot project Health Through Walls has received funding and was interested in doing additional projects at other prisons.
We began ordering those materials at the beginning of 2023. I would return to Haiti in August and November of 2023.
Personally…
I was really impressed with all of the team that I worked with as well as the organization Health Through Walls. A few things made an impression on me while I was there. Haitians have a great sense of humor and are a pleasure to be around. Especially, around a meal, the entertainment starts. They are resourceful and entrepreneurial- I passed, literally, a thousand small businesses a day selling whatever products and services they could find, improve and resell, all with good advertising. The justice system is “pre-Magna Carta” in some aspects. You are guilty until proven innocent, and if you cannot afford an attorney, they certainly do not provide one. I have worked with Spanish-speaking teams prior and it was the only experience with a second language. When I got tired instead of trying to speak the few Kreyol words that I knew, I reverted to Spanish. Later as I tried more Creole, I discovered the major benefit is that Kreyol doesn’t use conjugation, which makes it a lot easier!
