Power to the People

A few months back Native was approached by a group called MamaBaby in Haiti. They were in need of our help and we are excited to share the progress of this project with our Native community.

Haiti

In Haiti many women and children have no access to even the simplest forms of health care, especially when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnancy and childbirth are occasions to celebrate, but for many women in Haiti, pregnancy is a time of stress, limited access to medical care, poor nutrition, and risk.

In Haiti

25 physicians per 100,000 people
11 nurses per 100,000 people
80% of the population lives below the poverty line
1 out of 70 women die in childbirth

In Texas

212 physicians per 100,000 people
720 nurses per 100,000 people
17.4% of the population lives below the poverty line
3 per 1,000 women die in childbirth

MamaBaby Haiti

MamaBaby Haiti is a non-profit, free birth center serving the women and children of the northern region of Haiti around Cap-Haitien. In 2010, a team of three midwives went to assist in the earthquake relief effort and were shocked by the lack of available prenatal care for the women in Haiti. They had to help, thus Mamababy clinic was born. Mamababy provides free prenatal care, education, birth, postpartum, and pediatric care. Women come from all over to be seen in their clinic for prenatal care and to deliver their babies in a safe, clean, and welcoming environment. Mama Baby averages up to 40-50 births per month! Women are offered compassionate full service maternity care with an emphasis on education. The current facility is limited by the services they can offer due to a lack of electricity.
Enter Native….

Native’s Role

Currently, MamaBaby serves hundreds of women every week with a small generator as their only power generation source. This generator only runs a couple hours a day, mainly early in the morning to power the water pump which pumps a few hundred gallons to a holding tank to supply daily water needs. They contacted us requesting consulting services to help them design a system that would allow them to have full time access to electricity. Instead of simply designing a system for them, we decided to send a team to Haiti to install a donated 3 kW solar array coupled with a small battery storage system. This will provide the clinic with adequate power to keep medications refrigerated, run their water pump, and have much needed lights for births. Native is receiving some support from our industry partners with donations of panels but we still need your help to come up with the funds for the inverter, charge controllers, batteries, and shipping. Your support is important and we ask that you give what you can to help us with this worthy cause.