Oaxaca Wednesday: Firsthand Ripple Reporting

by Aly Lewis

I’d like to take this Oaxaca Wednesday to tell you about the time I became Buddy the Elf. It was mid-afternoon in the village of Monteflor in the Mixteca highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. We were standing in a circle listening to the Plant With Purpose local staff introduce the town’s community leaders. I was in my own world, rapidly scribbling down every last quote and name and description of the place so that I would have an ample supply of writing material to use once I returned to my job of elaborating on Plant With Purpose’s programs from my pseudo-cubicle. I was just completing a page of Spanglish scrawl when a new community member was introduced: Senor Gumersindo.

My Buddy the Elf transformation was instantaneous as it took everything in my power to not jump up and down yelling heatedly, “I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!”

Now I know Senor Gumercindo is no present-delivering, elf-befriending Santa Claus, but I sure did feel like it was Christmas morning. You see, a couple months ago for one of my Ripple Reports I wrote about this mysterious man named Senor Gumersindo who had introduced his neighbor to Plant With Purpose and subsequently transformed his life. I had received a few line testimony from the field mentioning Senor Gumersindo’s pivotal role, but that was it. I wrote the blog post and hardly gave him another thought. I never imagined I would get to meet him.

So back to my Elfish excitement. I couldn’t believe this modest man with his smoothed slack, pressed white shirt and backpack was the Senor Gumersindo I had written about. His identity was confirmed as Raul, our Family Garden and Greenhouse director, described him as “la voz de Misión Integral”—the voice of Plant With Purpose. Not only was he the man I had written about, he was even more influential in the Plant With Purpose story than I had imagined.

After the introductions ended and we began touring the village, I pounced on the opportunity to learn more about my legendary Plant With Purpose promoter. At first Senor Gumersindo hung back shyly, but when I approached him and asked him about Plant With Purpose’s projects he wasn’t shy at all. It turns out Senor Gumersindo is from the village of La Muralla, a two hour walk from Monteflor. Plant With Purpose has been working in his community for a number of years and he told me about all the direct and indirect benefits of Plant With Purpose’s projects. He told me about his family garden that is producing amazing vegetables and how his cousin grew the biggest onion he had ever seen. He talked about the lack of economic opportunities in La Muralla and the ways community members are finding sustainable ways to conserve resources and make money. As he explained the details and benefits of an ecological latrine better than I ever could in a grant application I could see why Raul would coin him the voice of Plant With Purpose. He was genuinely beaming as he talked about Plant With Purpose’s expansion to the community of Monteflor (at his suggestion) and how the number of participating families has grown from six to 70 in the past year!

So thank you, Senor Gumersindo and all of the farmers I met who are spreading the word about Plant With Purpose’s transformational program and projects. It turns out the multiplier effect really is alive and well in our Mexico program (and I can rest assured that my whole career hasn’t been a lie). Farmers really are sharing the knowledge they learn with their friends and neighbors. They’re multiplying the scope and depth of our work and encouraging others to do so as well. This is just one of many examples of Plant With Purpose’s ripple effect that is fostering long-term transformation in communities around the globe.

I’ll eat some candy corn to that!

Ripple Report: Hope is Spreading in Tanzania

by Aly Lewis

I'd like to start the week by reviving our Plant With Purpose Ripple Reports. This week's report features the inspiring story Dina Kokerie, a mother of five school age children from the village of Ashira in Tanzania. After Dina’s husband abandoned the family, she was left in a desperate situation. Unable to provide for her family’s needs, she was forced to borrow money from relatives. After hearing how Plant With Purpose's work had benefited the nearby village of Masia Mamba, she took the initiative to gather a group of 40 people and invited Plant With Purpose to help them form a Village Community Bank in Ashira. She is now secretary of the group, which meets weekly to encourage consistent savings and be trained in small business and agricultural skills.

The results in Dina’s life have been dramatic. Using the money from her goat breeding business she started with a VICOBA loan, Dina now supports her five children and is able to pay for all their school fees—which amount to over $1,000 a year! Even better, she says, “Now I can look to the future with confidence, since I am able to stand on my own. I am so happy that Plant With Purpose has come to my community.”

This week's Ripple Report is dedicated to all of the talented and proactive community members that seek us out to improve their lives and transform their communities. Click here to see how you can partner with farmers from around the world on this journey of hope.

We wish you the best, Dina!

Ripple Report: Beyond the Trees in Burundi

by Aly Lewis

The impact of Plant With Purpose’s newest program in Burundi, Africa goes far beyond the benefits of planting trees and spurring sustainable development. Like all of the areas Plant With Purpose works, Burundi is plagued with extreme poverty and environmental devastation. However, a widespread current of intolerance, anger, and misunderstanding between the country’s Hutu and Tutsi tribes intensifies these devastating environmental and economic problems. After decades of violent civil war, these tribes have only recently reached a peace accord. Though both Hutus and Tutsis living and working in the Rutana province share a common set of socioeconomic problems, long-standing hatred and prejudice remains. As refugees flood back into the country and people begin to rebuild, Burundi is faced with the challenge of transitioning from a nation on the brink of extinction to a nation of hope.

Similar to Plant With Purpose’s restorative work along the Haitian/Dominican border, yet unique among PWP’s other programs, our Burundi program offers a vital Peace & Reconciliation component. PWP encourages restoration and reconciliation two ways: by providing training and facilitation to community leaders on peace and reconciliation and, more importantly, by requiring that projects are all inclusive of all community members, Hutu and Tutsi alike. Community projects bring together people who were on both sides of the conflict to achieve project goals. This practical reconciliation is the most important and significant part of our strategy.

We’re already through year one in Burundi and have been excited to witness true reconciliation and heart changes. Leoni Karenzo of our Dushirehamwe group shared with us about her renewed hope and confidence since joining a PWP community group. The group consists of Hutu and Tutsi who have shared goals and interests. They work with, not against, each other. Since joining together, they now have harvests to bring home to their families. They feel love for each other and have regained confidence as a community. They have benefited from the economic gain and also rebuilt trust. Leoni recalls that before her exile, life was stable, but when she was forced to flee they suffered from malnutrition and poor health. Rebuilding life in Burundi was difficult and when she heard about the group she wanted to join. Now they have access to seeds, they can plant again, and they are rebuilding their lives, together.

We can’t wait to hear more stories like Leoni’s!

Ripple Report: The Eco-Friendly Marriage Booster

by Aly Lewis

The women of Tanzania are all abuzz with talk about this great new Plant With Purpose project that is transforming their lives. They claim their family life has changed for the better and even their marriages are improving. What’s this innovative, life-changing project that is empowering women and strengthening marriages, you ask? Is it a marriage class through our discipleship program? What about a micro-enterprise project designed to empower women to start small businesses? How about farming techniques that increase yields so that mothers can feed their starving children?

Guess again. The cause of improved marriages and increased self-esteem is nothing more than our Fuel-Efficient Stove project. Stoves? Really? How on earth can a stove improve a marriage and what on earth does a stove have to do with self-esteem?

Don’t worry, we were just as surprised as you.

PWP staff in Tanzania first introduced the project as an eco-friendly technique and communities caught on fast. Families replace their traditional stoves (or fire pits) with fuel-efficient stoves that use 50% less wood. This is great news for families with limited resources: burning less wood means more wood to sell for extra income or, even better, less trees to cut down in the first place. Because they produce less smoke, the stoves also lead to a decrease in respiratory disease in women and children. PWP staff members were excited about the environmental, economic, and health benefits of these stoves. What staff didn’t realize, however, was that the greatest benefit was yet to come. It turns out that these stoves have not only improved families’ physical health and economic situation, but improved marriages as well. With the stoves producing less harmful smoke, the husbands are spending more time with their wives in the kitchen. Marriages are improving, relationships strengthening and deepening, and women are improving their self-esteem. Since less time is spent collecting firewood, women have more time to spend with their families, get involved in the local community, and invest in small business opportunities.

This week’s Ripple Report is dedicated to the unforeseen benefits of fuel-efficient stoves: the eco-friendly way Tanzanian women are improving their marriages and boosting their confidence.

Ripple Report: Farmer Rides the Wave of Innovation

by Aly Lewis This week’s Ripple Report comes from Moshi, Tanzania. Located at the base of the breathtaking Mt. Kilimanjaro, Moshi is an area of great beauty, yet in recent years the area has been plagued with both poverty and deforestation. In 2004 Plant With Purpose began working in the region to help desperate farmers reverse this vicious cycle of poverty and deforestation and transform their lives. One of PWP’s most successful projects in the region has been biointensive agriculture training. This training equips farmers to make better use of their land, increase their yields, and improve their livelihoods. So great was the interest in these techniques that many of the original trainees immediately shared their knowledge with family members and neighbors. After learning these new techniques from a friend, one farmer, Fanueli Lewi Minja took the training one step further. Showing great initiative and innovation, Fanueli decided to make use of his new knowledge and expertise by starting his own biointensive agriculture business. Fanueli found that he could charge a small fee to establish biointensive vegetable beds for other community members. This way he can help his neighbors increase their yields and improve their land while making money to provide for his desperate family. Talk about a win, win situation! Community development is the process of empowerment, and Fanueli is a great example of a man who was empowered to take charge of his life and solve his own problems. And the best part is we’ve seen hundreds of leaders and innovators emerge as a result of PWP’s community development program; (to keep with the ripple metaphor) Fanueli is just one drop in the puddle.

Knowledge is Contagious

by Aly Lewis

In last week’s post about PWP’s innovative mushroom modules, I mentioned that "PWP has worked directly with Oaxacans to establish 15 mushroom modules, and even more families have begun their own mushroom modules as program beneficiaries share their knowledge and expertise with friends and neighbors." 

Indeed, much of the impact of PWP’s programs goes beyond our initial investment into a community. Plant With Purpose will train a group of 15 or so people on topics such as starting a mushroom module, building ecological latrines, or applying sustainable agriculture techniques to their land.  In addition to the training, PWP will provide some start up materials to help community members implement the projects. 

With the mushroom modules, for example, PWP trains a group of interested farmers in the technical aspects—like where mushrooms grow best, when to plant, when to harvest—and provides some start up materials such as the mushroom spores, but the community members provide the sheds, the corncobs to grow the mushrooms on, and do all of the labor themselves.  Once one family or community group has started one, they can share both their crop and their expertise to help their friends get started.  Because PWP’s projects are designed to utilize readily available materials, they’re pretty easy to replicate. Instead of giving out handouts that won’t last, PWP equips farmers with the skills and knowledge to implement sustainable projects that will transform their lives and the lives of their community.  In this way, the projects aren’t really our projects, but the community’s. 

Our impact evaluation reports from last year showed that:

In our program in Oaxaca, 52% of PWP beneficiaries have shared their knowledge and experience with 1, 2, or 3 other people. 

In Haiti, on average, 33.4% of PWP participants have trained a neighbor on one or more of the techniques taught to them by PWP. 

And, on average, 21% of non-beneficiaries in a PWP Tanzania community have copied or learned techniques from the PWP beneficiaries and then applied them to their own land. 

At PWP we’re big fans of the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This ripple effect is exciting to hear about and truly one of the most significant aspects of our program. Not only are we teaching 8,500 or so farmers directly how to earn a livelihood, but those 8,500 farmers are in turn teaching their neighbors to be self-sufficient, and the impact goes on and on.

This willingness of community members to share their knowledge and success with their neighbors made all the difference for Gerardo Miguel Martinez of La Muralla, Mexico. Last year Gerardo’s neighbor, Señor Gumersindo, invited him to be a part of a community greenhouse that PWP had helped begin. Gerardo says, “Thanks to Plant With Purpose and at the invitation that was extended to me by my neighbor, Señor Gumersindo, we are now working in a greenhouse, which has helped us a lot. Not only do we have tomatoes to eat but also to sell to our neighbors and the farms nearby. In this way we can benefit everyone, because we sell the tomatoes at a good price and the people in this region don’t have much income.”

This is just one of many examples of PWP’s ripple effect that is fostering long-term transformation in communities around the globe.  Stay tuned for a weekly “Ripple Report” to hear more stories of how rural farmers are sharing with purpose.