Haitian Bioscience Initiative

 

Recent events and natural disasters have challenged the population of Haiti with learning to meet their own basic needs for safe water and adequate sanitation.  What we want to do is to bring an understanding of water testing, and environmental monitoring to the citizens of rural Haiti.  Native Haitians can easily learn to assess water-quality by using field-testing kits.  With minimal funding, we will bring these kits to rural Haitian citizens and demonstrate their use.  Working hand-in-hand with the local population, this initiative will make significant inroads towards self-sufficiency for Haitians.

 

Teachers well-versed in laboratory work will implement a pilot program consisting of short-term, targeted, hands-on learning experiences surrounding environmental monitoring as it relates to health in Haiti.  The program will consist of visiting bioscience instructors teamed with Haitian interpreters delivering environmental monitoring techniques to small groups of students.  These pilot sessions will be 5-days long and accommodate 12 to 15 students in each some of Haiti’s rural locations.   Students are post-secondary or emerging secondary teachers identified by existing Haitian educational institutions.

Students will be engaged in water sample collection, testing and interpretation of the results.  Kits utilized for field-testing of samples will be used. This activity will be coupled with identification of water-borne pathogens and other contaminants.  Students develop routine quality assessment schedules and if necessary, remediation techniques to be implemented on site.

Students will be introduced to the human microbiome project via ubiome kits, and utilize the platform of Labster for virtual laboratory experience.

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