Sipping on sun-water at SOS Children’s Village in Haiti

March 5, 2010

As we recently reported, 10 of GE’s solar-powered water purification units were shipped to earthquake-stricken Haiti to help with the country’s desperate needs for clean water. Now, seven of the Sunspring units are up and running — with each able to provide safe water for up to 10,000 people per day. Our Sunspring partner, Innovative Water Technologies, was hard at work this week completing installations that bring the total of available clean water in the Port au Prince area to over 40,000 gallons per day. The video below was created and produced by Mark Tchelistcheff of openfilms.net and documents the installation at the SOS Children’s Village orphanage in Santo, Haiti.

In addition to the work at SOS, Innovative Water Technologies installed one of the units at STEP, which stands for Seminaire Theologique de l’Eglise de Dieu en Haiti. The photo below, taken from a cell phone, shows the line-up for water just minutes after the installation was completed. The Sunspring unit is operating on the other side of the wall.

The STEP Clinic in Croix des Bouquets serves the needs of a surrounding community of approximately 25,000 people and provided critical medical care to the community after the earthquake.
The STEP Clinic in Croix des Bouquets serves the needs of a surrounding community of approximately 25,000 people and provided critical medical care to the community after the earthquake.

The team on the ground in Haiti says that so far, all of the untreated water samples they have tested have shown unsafe microbiological contamination — which means the necklace of SunSpring systems being installed can make a critical difference.

The unit at the SOS Children’s home is seen just after installation was completed
The unit at the SOS Children’s home is seen just after installation was completed.

As the team writes on their Haiti update blog: “IWT installed the first Sunspring water filtration system in Haiti in February of 2009. Little did they know they would be back a year later to facilitate the installation of more systems in and around Port au Prince. Hospitals and clinics, orphanages, central city areas, and youth sports centers are just a few of the organizations benefitting.”

The ecomagination technology effectively treats groundwater, surface-water, and recycled rainwater or cistern water.
The ecomagination technology inside of the Sunspring effectively treats groundwater, surface-water, and recycled rainwater or cistern water. They are solar-powered, portable, and able to produce clean drinking water using the same membrane treatment technology used by large scale treatment plants.
With much of Haiti’s water supply contaminated following the quake, the need for filtration equipment to prevent dysentary and other diseases is extremely high.
With much of Haiti’s water supply contaminated following the quake, the need for filtration equipment to prevent dysentary and other diseases is extremely high.
Of the $2.5 million that GE has targeted for earthquake relief in Haiti, $1 million will be used to aid in long-term recovery.GE Foundation

This entry was posted in Citizenship, Ecomagination, Other, Water and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Longterm Investor

    2009 Annual report is out :) You should post this on gereports as well.

    http://www.ge.com/ar2009/index.html

    Glad to see GE doing Good things down in Haiti. Technology and GE working towards a good goal.

    Kind of disappointed my March 16 puts are out of the money, I would like 300 more shares put to my account by expiration day. Sold em in november, wait all this time and no GE stock :(

  • Tom Armitage

    Good effort! Looks like the SunSprings are working well and the area needs more of them.

    Are you going to put in more?

    Are you looking at putting them in Chile?

    Have a Good day,
    Tom A

  • Willian

    I am proud to work at GE Inspection Technologies

  • martha savage

    Our parish,St Michaels of Syracuse NY, has twin parish, Immaculate Conception, in Chauffard Haiti that is in desperate need of a clean water supply system. I am wondering how to get this water supply system to Chauffard where there are about 40,000 people. It is about 30 miles south west of Port au Prince. How much does it cost, how can we facilitate getting this? We may have people in Syracuse wiling to do the work.