Neil Van Dine
Co-Founder and Country Director
Haiti Outreach, Inc.
A native of Wellsville, N.Y., Neil has dedicated 30 years to advancing the development of the country of Haiti, where he has lived since 1989.
Haiti captured his heart when he traveled there to help repair water wells during breaks from undergraduate studies. Not long after graduation, he made the decision to move to Haiti, raised funds and started a small vocational school in tandem with well drilling work for the World Christian Relief Fund. Following the U.S. led intervention in Haiti in 1994, he worked with the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration in Haiti and Turks and Caicos. In 1997, Neil co-founded Haiti Outreach, where he has served for the last 22 years as Country Director.
Building on years of experience in Haiti, the team developed the innovative core methodology of Haiti Outreach, combining technical expertise, knowledge sharing, and leadership to create transformation and empower hundreds of rural villages to manage their clean water supplies. They have developed a very successful model to bring community managed and sustained clean water systems and improved sanitation to over 220,000 people in Haiti. They are on the front lines of defining managed water and sanitation in developing countries, with the goal of every household having access to sustainably managed clean water.
As member of the E-WASH club and international board member of the Water and Sanitation Rotary Action Group (WASRAG), Neil has also been working with fellow Rotarians on the creation of an international tool to permit data driven decision making and work tracking for Rotary WASH initiatives worldwide.
He is also co-chair of the HAitian National WAter, Sanitation and Hygeine (HANWASH) initiative involving PRIP Barry Rassin, District #7020 PDG's Robert Leger, Jeremy Hurst, WASRAG Chair Emeritus Ron Denham, and Rotarians, NGO's, and government leaders from across Haiti. The vision of HANWASH is to create an initiative capable of bringing access to sustainable potable water and improved sanitation to the entire country of Haiti.
Neil has a B.S. in Mathematics with teaching certification from Albright College in Pennsylvania, a Masters in Civil Engineering from Norwich University in Vermont, and an Honorary PHD in Humanities from Albright.