Renewable Energy for the Majority World: A Pilot Project in Fond des Blancs Haiti

Project Abstract

This project proposes the affiliation of students, staff and faculty at Dartmouth College to work with community members, the local government and key organizations of Fond des Blancs (FdB), a town in the southern peninsula of Haiti. Although only 65 miles from Port au Prince, the capital city, FdB is quite remote because of topography and quality of roads. However, during the past 35 years FdB has become home to the largest completely accessible full service clinic in southern Haiti, St. Boniface Hospital (www.haitihealth.org). With a grant from the Kellogg Foundation Fond des Blancs recently completed a comprehensive Master Plan with Build Health International as the primary consultant and publisher, together with the Association pour le développment de Fond de Blancs (https://adfhaiti.org/) as the primary representative of the community. One important recommendation of the Master Plan is to design and develop a renewable electrical energy system that addresses the needs of the local institutions, businesses and residents. Our project intends to affiliate Dartmouth with the development of the Fond des Blancs venture. The proposal outlines how the college can partner with successful local organizations to plan and advance the town's renewable energy system, a system which in turn could be replicable in other parts of Haiti and the Majority World.