Q & A with Gina Duncan, Executive Director of Fondation Enfant Jesus

Gina Duncan (right) with FEJ Founder Lucienne "Manmi" Duncan

Fondation Enfant Jesus (FEJ) is the non-profit organization that will own and run USGBC’s Project Haiti Orphanage & Children’s Center. Project Haiti is being rebuilt in the earthquake-stricken Port-au-Prince’s Delmas 41 neighborhood and its impact will go far beyond the walls of the building. The LEED Platinum facility will educate the Haitian people on how to rebuild back better and will provide a safe place for those who need it most. FEJ is dedicated to creating a nurturing and loving environment that educates both children and parents, offers pathways to adoption and provides medical support to those in need.

Who benefits from the work of FEJ?

First of all and most importantly, the children who receive care at our orphanages and schools benefit from our work. These children are most at risk and in the poorest communities. The community itself also benefits.  We work closely with the women in the community who are the mothers of the children, we provide education and we set a positive example. We are really proud of the example we are setting for the rest of the country on what is possible.

What is your proudest accomplishment thus far?

As far as FEJ is concerned, our proudest moments have been centered on uniting families and promoting education in everything we do. The impact of education through our school program, health clinics and promotion of education in all its facets is at the core and essence of change and progress. We’ve taken the time to understand that education is the true catalyst for change.

Resilient Buildings and Self-Reliance Will Strengthen Haiti Now and into the Future

Jeremy Sigmon, LEED® AP BD+C
Manager, Building Codes Advocacy
U.S. Green Building Council

Rubble and tent villages in every direction. Mountains of trash with no place to go. A stench that makes your stomach turn.

Canals full of stagnant, disease-filled water. Thirsty livestock and nesting mosquitoes competing for the same dirty water.

A denuded landscape with hardly any nutrient-rich soil left to retain the precious water needed to support replanting.

Millions of people with limited or no access to basic amenities like clean water, safe shelters, electricity and toilet facilities.

My heart sinks.

Solidarité Market surrounded in trash sometimes taller than trucks on Boulevard La Saline in
Port au Prince. (March 11, 2012)

Tent villages extend to the foothills that, without vegetation, come sliding down when it rains. (Photo taken by my colleague outside of Port au Prince in February, 2012)

Yet I see so many of Haiti’s own smiling amidst these tough times and even tougher conditions. Haiti, with its rich culture and instinct of hope and resolve, is building for a better future, trying to put behind them a government that has failed them time and time again.

This was both my first and last impression of Haiti as I traveled on an old American school bus out of and back into Port au Prince. My many other thoughts and impressions during my seven-day stay were far more hopeful.

USGBC and AIA Accomplish Shared Goals for 2011

Maggie Comstock
Associate, Policy
U.S. Green Building Council

Last week, hundreds of architects stormed Washington as part of the American Institute of Architects’ annual Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference. Grassroots serves as a forum to convene AIA’s extensive local chapter network, with which USGBC’s local chapters often collaborate. Partnerships are the primary tools in any advocacy organization’s tool belt; however, the ongoing collaboration between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) goes far beyond the average partnership.

USGBC and AIA are natural allies in the green building arena. Over the years, our shared goals for a sustainable built environment have fostered a rich and robust collaboration. This relationship has led to successful outcomes on far too many occasions to name, but here are some of the most notable achievements from 2011.

Who’s Benefitting from Project Haiti?

Marisa Long 
External Relations Manager
U.S. Green Building Council

As part of the USGBC community, you’ve been introduced to Project Haiti over the past year. You’ve heard us talk about rebuilding this orphanage and children’s center in Port-au-Prince that was destroyed in the earthquake that devastated the region just over two years ago.

You know that Project Haiti is set to achieve LEED Platinum and the impact that will have – from creating jobs and teaching local Haitians how to “build back better” to providing a resilient model for rebuilding that all countries can learn from and replicate. As Roger Limoges, Project Haiti lead and vice president of organizational development at USGBC says, “If we can build LEED Platinum in Haiti, we can do it anywhere.” Project Haiti is a powerful symbol of what’s possible in the green building movement and its impact will be vast.

 Marisa Long with children at the Crèche at Lamardelle

But it’s of course more than that. What you haven’t heard us talk much about is Fondation Enfant Jesus (FEJ), the beneficiaries of Project Haiti. It wasn’t until last week, when I traveled to Haiti myself, met the amazing people from FEJ and spent time with the children and staff at their facilities, that I fully understood the impact this project will have on FEJ and the communities it unselfishly serves.

Project Haiti IV

Sally Gimbert
Structural Engineering Technician
HOK

This entry was cross-posted from MetropolisMag.com.

USGBC's close collaborators in Project Haiti, global architectural firm HOK, have published a series of blog entries on their efforts to design the first LEED Platinum orphanage and children's center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their pro-bono design efforts have been met with great enthusiasm, but also unique challenges. Read more about the design process for Project Haiti on HOKlife.com.

Early in the Project Haiti process, our team decided to meet the design requirements of the ICC 2009 International Building Code—also encouraged by the Haitian government for new construction since the 2010 earthquake. We were already familiar with the code and so we believed it would provide the best opportunity to create excellent design. Selecting a code was also a means by which we could ensure the safety of occupants.

HOK has never worked in Haiti before. Our partner, the U.S. Green Building Council, is focused on adapting to a new global perspective in sustainable design. These two factors made for a project with unique challenges. And, we knew at the outset that we’d have difficulty following codes written for consumer-based, resource-rich nations.

Amidst the chaos in the earthquake’s aftermath, an underlying sense of self-enforced order supports the Haitian desire to own and operate at a Western standard. They, too, are looking to build fiscally sound, structurally stable, and economically progressive projects. The difficulty? Haiti has very little infrastructure to support these goals. As we work with the code here, three items continually demand our attention: constantly checking on the realistic cost of building to code, developing an educated workforce to achieve code-compliant design, and the acquisition of materials in a resource-poor country.

The residential streets of Port-au-Prince. (image courtesy of HOK).

It is easy to make assumptions about infrastructure in the U.S. An engineer working in St Louis, for instance, can have confidence that when she/he specifies a high-strength structural bolt, it will be available domestically, with little to no lead time, and at a reasonable price – all saving time and money while easily meeting the code. This is not the case in Haiti. Port-au-Prince only recently acquired such basic things as garbage trucks – a welcome site for residents living on streets lined with goat-eaten trash and building debris.

From Devastation to Development: How Cincinnati is Working to Change the Haiti Conversation

Myron J. Rivers
Executive Director
USGBC Cincinnati Regional Chapter

There are certain times and events throughout history that can be described with one word or phrase and require no further explanation. These words instantly evoke a deep sense of meaning, knowledge and even emotion. Words and phrases like: Challenger space shuttle, 9/11 and Columbine all bring to mind catastrophic events that have unfolded right before our eyes. Another word that stirs the emotions of many is Haiti.

As you know, two years ago this month, Haiti was ravaged by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake 25 miles west of Port Au Prince. This earthquake left in its wake more than 300,000 dead and one million homeless. There are reports that more than 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings were destroyed by the earthquake and numerous after-shocks in the days and weeks following. This single event has taken so much from this small Caribbean country and left greater amounts of poverty and despair.

Where Were You? Haiti After the Earthquake

Sean Fish
Associate, LEED
LEED Project Administrator – Project Haiti

I’ll always remember where I was when I found out about the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. That evening, I was attending an event at the Newseum in Washington, DC, where Brian Williams of NBC News was the guest of honor. As the event was beginning, Mr. Williams stepped on stage and announced to the crowd that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake had just shaken Port au Prince. The reports were just starting to come in, but fatalities were expected to be in the thousands. His words that evening and the visual scenes of the devastation that came across the airwaves over the following days and weeks will forever be etched in my memory. From those first few days, I knew I wanted to help make a difference in Haiti; I just wasn’t sure how I could.


In June, 2011 I was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime when I was asked to be the LEED Project Administrator for Project Haiti Orphanage & Children’s Center. I soon found myself deeply involved in this very special part of the recovery effort in Haiti; working with an incredible team of volunteers from USGBC and HOK Architecture. In August, I was able to visit Haiti and see firsthand the resiliency of the people there. I was truly amazed to see how, despite having barely enough to eat, everyone smiled as they went about their business. People who had almost nothing were happier than just about anyone I had ever met. These were truly special people.

As the LEED Project Administrator for Project Haiti, I am tasked with overseeing the LEED certification of the project. Project Haiti aims to be the first LEED Platinum certified structure in Haiti, a truly sustainable example of how Haiti can be rebuilt following the devastation of the earthquake. People have asked me why we would strive to build to Platinum in Haiti, and the answer is simple; because the Haitian people are worth Platinum, they deserve to see something truly special come together out of complete devastation.


While in Haiti, I met a few children who lost their families in the earthquake. Meeting these kids changed my life and turned Project Haiti into more than just another project for me, it has become a mission. A part of the mission is actually seeing this project completed, and to do that, we need donations. I recently began an effort with USGBC staff to help raise money for Project Haiti by running in an upcoming half marathon in Washington, DC. Currently, over 15 USGBC staff members have committed to running the half marathon and we are each soliciting individual donations on behalf of Project Haiti. Our goal is to raise $2,000 collectively for the project.

Today I encourage everyone to reflect on where they were two years ago when they found out about the earthquake and the devastation in Haiti. Please keep these amazingly resilient people in your thoughts and donate what you can to this exceptional project that will transform lives for years to come.

Two Years Later: Rebuilding a Resilient Future for Haiti

Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO & Founding Chairman
U.S. Green Building Council

This article is cross-posted from the Huffington Post.

Two years ago this week, Haiti was hit by the catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 315,000 people. Today, the work to rebuild this poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has barely gotten started.

According to the U.S. Department of State, the U.N. has called this earthquake the largest urban disaster in modern history, affecting 3 million people, displacing 1.5 million and creating 10 million cubic meters of rubble. Two years later, while some significant steps have been made – less than half of those originally displaced still remain in camps, half of the 10 million cubic meters of rubble has been removed and USAID has provided approximately $108 million for emergency shelter and shelter solutions – we need to work faster and do so much more.

I've always said the work we do to make our buildings green is about people and making their lives better. That is why the U.S. Green Building Council, along with global architectural firm HOK as the pro-bono design partner, have been working to design and construct Project Haiti, which is aiming to be a LEED Platinum orphanage and children’s center in Port au Prince. In an effort to show the children of Haiti that their lives are valued, they deserve to breathe clean air and they are cared about, it will provide for the immediate health and emotional needs of orphans and offer a pathway to adoption. And today, we are proud to release the renderings of Project Haiti, the first of many steps toward our end goal.



This building is our commitment to live up to our ideal. Project Haiti will provide a safe, comfortable and nurturing environment for some of the most vulnerable people in the world. HOK’s sustainable design strategies are sensitive to the culture and history of Haiti, while at the same time including passive elements that require minimal maintenance and are not dependent on mechanical systems. Aspects such as natural ventilation, a safe water supply, an on-site power generator that uses solar, wind and biofuel and biomimetic design features will all be incorporated to create a building that is environmentally and financially sustainable for the people of Haiti.

I have witnessed for myself the amazing resiliency of the Haitian people who wake up every morning in the tent cities, wash themselves in a bowl of water and do whatever they can in the oppressive heat and sun to make an honest day's wage. But nothing has had more of an impact than meeting the hundreds of orphans that have made Project Haiti not just a professional obligation, but a personal commitment.

As we soberly acknowledge this two-year mark, I'm asking that you reflect on the efforts being made to rebuild Haiti and engage in USGBC’s work with Project Haiti. Whether you simply learn more about the project, make a donation or spread the word, every little bit helps to get us to our goal to do just this one critical thing. I guarantee it helps us show the developing world that sustainable building practices are not just for the well-off, but for everyone.

Read the press release from HOK »

HOK & USGBC Working Together to Build LEED Children's Center in Haiti

USGBC's close collaborators in Project Haiti, global architectural firm HOK, have published a series of blog entries on their efforts to design the first LEED Platinum orphanage and children's center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their pro-bono design efforts have been met with great enthusiasm, but also unique challenges. Read more about the design process for Project Haiti on HOKlife.com.

HOK Volunteers Helping USGBC Rebuild Orphanage in Haiti

The challenge goes far beyond a small site requiring a multitude of uses. Haiti’s fractured (and, in some ways, nonexistent) infrastructure presents obstacles for providing basic needs such as electricity and running water. Environmental and cultural circumstances influence many aspects of the design, creating a steep learning curve for the team.
Read the full blog entry »

Project Haiti: The First Charrette

When you’re used to seeing colleagues in work attire, it’s strange to see them on a weekend. But there we were – a conference room full of people in shorts and jeans, spending a summer Saturday volunteering for an extraordinary project: rebuilding an orphanage and children’s center in Haiti.
Read the full blog entry »

Project Haiti: Challenges

At the opening charrette for Project Haiti, we asked a few of the designers about the challenges they anticipated for this unique project. Their responses covered everything from technology to materials to cultural considerations.
Read the full blog entry »

Project Haiti Takes Center Stage at Greenbuild 2011

This is a cross-posted entry from the blog at hoklife.com.
Access the original entry »

HOK is the USGBC’s official design partner for Project Haiti, a pro bono effort to build a LEED-certified orphanage and children’s center in Port au Prince. Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus and a team from HOK recently returned from Toronto, where they shared the Project Haiti story at Greenbuild 2011. Read on for Mary Ann’s guest post and an amazing video from the USGBC:



Imagine it: 15,000 people in the Air Canada Hockey arena, lights flashing, music playing, Jumbotrons running. Cue USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi for the introduction of the new Project Haiti video. The video features the recent site visit by the USGBC and HOK team members and meeting with the terrific clients, Gina and Lucien Duncan from the children’s center.

I was quite overwhelmed to be projected at mega-scale to this crowd of great green leaders from across the globe and humbled by everyone’s positive reaction. The video’s goal is to communicate the tremendous opportunity to support the children’s center effort as well as share the inspiration that the project provides to all involved. And it does just that!

Check it out – it’s well worth the five minutes of your time. And think about supporting Project Haiti as well. Pass it on.

Learn more and support Project Haiti »
Visit hoklife.com »

Breaking News: New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman and ABC News Political Commentator Cokie Roberts to Tackle Building Resiliency at Greenbuild

Kimberly Lewis
Vice President, Conferences and Events
U.S. Green Building Council

The Greenbuild speaker roster is shaping up to be an incredible one! We just received confirmation that Thomas Friedman and Cokie Roberts will join the diverse roster of thought leaders and innovators at the Greenbuild International Conference & Expo in Toronto.

Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning and internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist, will lend his expertise to USGBC’s Resiliency Agenda panel, taking place at the Opening Keynote & Celebration on Oct. 5. The panel, moderated by Roberts, an Emmy Award-winning journalist, bestselling author and a 40 year veteran of broadcasting, will discuss resiliency and demonstrate how all industries can play a role in community rebuilding efforts in Haiti and around the globe.

In his 2008 bestselling book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America, Friedman explored the parallels between the climate crisis and the global economic crisis, proposing a national strategy, coined “Geo-Greenism,” to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure. "I find this set of issues—how we take the lead in the clean-tech revolution and use that to refresh, renew, and revive America—is what animates me most,” Friedman has said.

Friedman, Farmer and Roberts will speak at Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto.

Roberts serves dually as Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio and Political Analyst for ABC News, where she spent six years co-anchoring This Week with Sam Donaldson. An inductee into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, Roberts has won countless awards, and was cited as one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting.

Medical anthropologist and physician, Dr. Paul Farmer, will also participate on the panel. As Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Founder of Partners in Health, Dr. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality.

Check USGBC’s blog tomorrow for another breaking Greenbuild announcement. Additional panelists will be announced on the blog later this week. Stay connected via greenbuildexpo.org and follow @USGBC on Twitter using hashtag #greenbuild for late-breaking announcements and information. See you in Toronto!

Learn more about Greenbuild »
Register for Greenbuild »