About the Forward in Health PV4Water© Project
Globally, 99% of the earth’s water is not fit for consumption and needs to be processed. According to the World Health Organization, 1.1 Billion of the earth’s inhabitants (1 in 6) do not have access to fresh water. This is especially true in the country of Haiti, where an estimated 3.6 million children and families live without fresh water or medical care just in the Fonfred area of Les Cayes.
Similar to our Wind4Water© system, PV4Water© utilizes the suns natural resource to purify and deliver water while simultaneously providing sustainable electricity to localized buildings. By integrating a solar component to the traditional water purification system, the need for expensive fossil fuels is eliminated, which is especially important in a rural, developing country like Haiti. With PV4Water©, we are able to take advantage of periods of excess electrical generation from solar photovoltaic panels in order to inexpensively make and store extra fresh water- in effect, the water system becomes a ’storage battery’ for the excess solar energy.
In this particular PV4Water© project, the non-profit organization Forward in Health and Associated Energy Developers are teaming together to solve the challenges of fresh water and medical assistance through the provision of plentiful solar electricity that will power a water delivery system and a rural medical clinic.
About Forward in Health
Forward in Health’s (www.forwardinhealth.org) mission is to improve the health conditions and dignity of the people in and around Les Cayes, a remote, impoverished area of Haiti not served by utility grids. Comprised of several doctors, the Forward in Health team has been working to improve health of Haitian citizens since 2006.
Since the first days members of the nonprofit traveled to Haiti, the need for a permanent, modern medical presence in the area was obvious. Today, work is being completed on a primary care medical clinic to bring lifesaving health care to the people in this region of the country who do not have the means to travel an estimated 3 – 4 hours to Port-au-Prince.
The Forward in Health clinic occupies 3 ½ acres of land. This concise and extremely efficient one story building will provide a nurse station, physician exam rooms, a laboratory, pharmacy, and radiology. Boston-based designers and architects have developed blue-prints to maximize the use of the space that suits the needs of
