Haiti Anecdotes and Admiration

by Aly Lewis

Jean Marie Jeanlys is a Plant With Purpose member in the community of Haute Terre Froide. His household of 8 expanded to include four more relatives—all too young to contribute to household income—who were displaced during the quake. As a part of Plant With Purpose’s Short-term Employment project, Jean was paid to construct soil erosion barriers. The barriers conserve soil and protect farmers’ crops in Jean’s community, giving Jean a meaningful way to earn income and support his family. “The project helps. Any little income helps,” said Jean.

I know I’m biased, but I would just like to share with you why I think Plant With Purpose’s response to the earthquake in Haiti-from food distribution and road clearing to seed and tool distribution to our short-term employment and soil conservation project—is absolutely awesome:

• We’re already here. We’ve partnered with Haitian farmers to overcome poverty for the past 12 years.
• 99% of Haiti relief aid is going to Port-au-Prince, but thousands of people have fled the devastated city and returned to the rural areas—where we work. The revitalization of rural agriculture will play a critical role in establishing food security and contributing to the future health and prosperity of Haiti.
• Our Short-Term Employment project provides farmers with much needed cash without resorting to handouts. Farmers can earn money to support their families while engaging in productive, restorative work that will have lasting benefits for the land, their families, and their communities.
• The project allows us to expand our reach. We’re working with new communities, reforesting new microwatersheds, and encouraging new families to implement sustainable, income-generating projects.
• We’re stimulating the Haitian economy by purchasing local seeds from Haitian distributors for our Seed and Tool Distribution Project. Similarly, all of the rice and cooking oil purchased for our Food Distribution Project was bought from local Haitian venders, supporting not undermining the fragile Haitian economy.
• In our Seed and Tool Distribution project, seeds are being provided on a partial credit basis with a 20% repayment rate in-kind. We’ve found that requiring farmers to pay back a portion of the seed they were given with the seed they produce encourages a stronger sense of ownership of the project as well as increased community participation. It also equips Plant With Purpose with a bean supply that can be distributed in future emergencies.

And this is all in conjunction with Plant With Purpose’s ongoing work of teaching sustainable agriculture, granting access to credit, and empowering communities to take ownership of their problems and work collectively to implement creative solutions. Sounds pretty awesome to me. (Maybe I should have titled this post Haiti Testimonies and Horn Tooting)

***

Aly Lewis is Plant With Purpose’s Grant Writer. She researches funding opportunities, writes proposals, and submits progress reports on funding received. She also writes the content for Plant With Purpose's Sponsor A Village program.

Hope for Haiti Lies in the Hands of Farmers

by Aly Lewis

“There is still hope in Haiti. There is still opportunity in Haiti. All you have to do is look into the eyes of the men, women and children whose resilience over the past months has inspired the world,” said Cheryl Mills, Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her recent article, The Importance of Agriculture in Confronting Hunger, Poverty, and Unemployment in Haiti.

Everyone’s talking about the best way to rebuild an earthquake-tattered Haiti richer, better and stronger. I have been excited to read numerous articles emphasizing the great opportunity for Haiti—and those of us working in Haiti—to address the root causes of such daunting problems as miserable poverty, widespread hunger, and massive unemployment.

In Mills’ article she writes about the vital need for food security in the rebuilding of Haiti, especially as thousands relocate from crumbled Port-au-Prince to rural areas. She highlights the critical role agriculture will play in establishing food security and contributing to the future health and prosperity of the nation. In fact, the United States’ aid efforts to Haiti will focus on “investing in agriculture as a key mechanism to tackle poverty, the root cause of food insecurity and under-nutrition.”

Revitalizing Haiti’s agriculture sector will not be an easy task. According to Mills there is an abundance of challenges, including: “small farms; limited mechanization; low yields; soil erosion; limited access to agricultural inputs; scarce credit; high post-harvest losses; and poor or non-existent rural infrastructure.”

That’s where we come in. For 13 years Plant With Purpose has been working to improve agriculture in Haiti by transforming the lives of rural farmers. Plant With Purpose’s earthquake recovery plan specifically addresses many of the challenges named by Mills. Short-term employment teams will plant trees and apply soil conservation techniques to combat soil erosion and restore small farm plots to productivity while giving desperate farmers immediate income. Additionally, farmers will be provided with crop seeds and tools—agricultural inputs—to increase their crop yields this planting season. Coupled with Plant With Purpose’s ongoing work of teaching sustainable agriculture, granting access to credit, and empowering communities to take ownership of their problems and work collectively to implement creative solutions, Haitian farmers will become vital agents in the revival of Haiti’s agriculture sector.

There is still hope in Haiti. And it is in the very farmers Plant With Purpose has the privilege of calling partners and friends.

To read the full article by Cheryl Mills click here.

To donate to Plant With Purpose’s relief and recovery efforts in Haiti click here.

PWP Haitian Communities Speak Out

Below are two short testimonies we have received from families in Haiti. These accounts show a tremendous amount of courage and faith despite dire circumstances. Before the earthquake there were 11 people in my house. They ate 3 times per day and we sent 6 of them to school. After, 9 more people joined the family. I keep trying to give them 2 meals a day because things are getting difficult. There are 2 whose mother died in the earthquake. In that sense, I say to Plant With Purpose thank you because they helped me to give my family several hot meals. I ask God to show Plant With Purpose a way to have the means to continue to exist.- Franquer Delva, a Haitian woman who lives in the region of Kafe Lompre, Haiti. Before the earthquake there were 10 people in my house. I lived with a contented heart and everyone ate 2 or 3 times per day. After the earthquake my spirit is not at peace, and I live with a fearful heart. From time to time I feel like I am shaking even though no tremor has passed. My house was not destroyed but has some damage. I say to Plant With Purpose thank you for the first hot food we will eat and we see we will find a way to have food for several days. Now there are 18 people living in my house. It is only God who could guide everyone to work to get this food and other things to come. -Desire Lachand, a Haitian woman who lives in the region of Martel, Haiti

We have a great opportunity to make a huge difference in the communities where we have been working for the last thirteen years. These rural communities have seen a significant increase in the number of mouths to feed and family members to shelter. Help our 40 Haitian staff members provide immediate food aid and long-term food security to families in need. The planting season is quickly approaching! We are working with 2,500 farmers and their families (15,000-20,000 individuals, depending on further migration) and need your support! Please visit and share www.plantwithpurpose.org to be a part of what Plant With Purpose is doing in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

Thank you,

~The Plant With Purpose staff in the US and Haiti.

a 30,000 foot view

posted by Corbyn

Thanks to all our loyal blog followers for being a part of what we are doing here at Plant With Purpose! I wanted to share with you all a quick view from above of what Plant With Purpose does. This would be a great blog for you to share with your friends and family inviting them to get their daily dose of community development blogging.

Who we are: Plant With Purpose, a Christian non-profit organization, reverses deforestation and poverty in the world, by transforming the lives of the rural poor. We plant, we teach, we create enterprise, and we share the gospel.

Values/Principles of Practice:

Plant With Purpose is a Christian nonprofit organization. As such we:

· Put God first in everything we do.

· Engaged in society as a whole, dialoging and partnering with secular environmental organizations, development organizations, academia, governments, etc.

Share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a holistic and intentional way, through our work.

Plant With Purpose reverses deforestation. Therefore, we:

Work with local farmers who struggle with environmentally destructive agricultural practices.

· Teach and model stewardship of God's creation.

· Work to restore the integrity of the land.

· Are on the cutting edge of agriculture/agroforestry/agroecology - continually looking for the best possible local models, seeking crop combinations that are biologically beneficial and experimenting, in collaboration with the farmers.

· Promote diversity among crops - so farmers are not vulnerable to the volatility of any one market, and are growing a combination of cash crops and food crops.

· Use native species wherever possible - we don't fully understand the consequences of exotic species, nor do we fully understand the benefits of native species.

· Make organic agriculture a priority.

· Work to make local agriculture sustainable.

Plant With Purpose reverses poverty. To accomplish this, we:

· Look for opportunities to work with poor farmers who have no access to credit.

· Empower local farmers to be change agents in their communities.

· Encourage the farmers’ participation in planning and developing specific programs that will meet their individual and community needs.

Plant With Purpose transforms lives. We:

· Address the needs of the whole person with a wholistic program that is theologically and economically sound, and environmentally appropriate.

Organizationally and Relationally, Plant With Purpose:

· Collaborates with other agencies.

· Actively promotes self-sufficiency of local partners.

· Actively supports the excellence of local partners.

· Works in full partnership with donors and beneficiaries.

· Is participatory in our decision making - encouraging and seeking participation by all: women and men, community members, donors and volunteers and ensuring that all are a part of the process.

· Values and develops people, realizing that our programs are only as good as our people.

~~~~~~~

Corbyn Small serves as Plant With Purpose’s Outreach Coordinator. He cultivates relationships with donors, churches, artists and musicians to generate interest and enthusiasm for Plant With Purpose’s life-changing programs.

Plant With Purpose News Round Up

Every week we come across informative articles that directly pertain to our work. So, we've decided to put them all together in one spot. For those of you who would like to delve deeper into what transformational development is all about, check out the below links. Have an article you would like us to know about? Send it in to kate@plantwithpurpose.org and we'll add it to the round up. Happy reading, and keep your eyes peeled each week for the "Plant With Purpose News Round Up". Environment: A fascinating article from The Economist on fertility rates around the world and their impact on the environment http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14744915 New Data on the Melting Snows of Kilimanjaro: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/02/tech-climate-kilimanjaro-glacier.html Reconciliation: A Reminder of why our work on the border is so critical: Protesters decry Haitian decapitations in Dominican Republic http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1089009&lang=eng_news Agriculture: Finally, after years of neglect, there is renewed focus on agriculture and the rural poor: Time: Back to the Land: The New Green Revolution http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1930363,00.html?artId=1930363?contType=article?chn=world This recent paper by Oxfam sums up nicely some of the current trends in agricultural development. There are also a lot of good data on the state of small scale farmers, where development money is being spent, and where it is coming from. If you don't have time to read the full paper, we have also provided the link to the 6 page exec. summary. http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-129-investing-in-poor-farmers-summary.pdf http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-129-investing-in-poor-farmers.pdf

Field Trip! The IRC Community Garden in San Diego

by Corbyn Small

It was 4:10 pm Thursday afternoon and I was driving around searching frantically to find the New Roots Community Farm in City Heights, San Diego. My nerves were on end as I was the one who had planned the field trip for the Plant With Purpose staff to visit and tour this urban farm that I had heard about a few months back. Finally I spot the section of land right off 54^th Street and rush to park. Once inside I met Amy Lint, New Roots Farm Coordinator at International Rescue Committee (IRC). As I walked in, there were teenagers working hard on a plot of land to get rid of rocks, men playing games under the canopy, and a few women and children watering and tending to their crops. All in all, the small two acres of land was quite active and not at all what I had expected to see!

Every year around 800 refugees from East Africa, the Middle-East, and Southeast Asia arrive to San Diego and have to get resettled into their new home, adjust to culture shock, and find new jobs that will provide enough income to provide for themselves and their families. IRC helps these refugees to do just that. Starting from the beginning, they help these individuals and families to start their new lives here in San Diego, “America’s Finest City."

New Roots Community Farm is a project by IRC focused on creating an urban garden for refugees, new immigrants, and neighbors to farm in order to help alleviate some pressures on families in the neighborhood who are surviving on some sort of federal aid and living close to the poverty line.

As mentioned before, when I hustled onto the lot I could not believe what I saw, from all I knew this garden had only opened to its farmers two and a half months ago and yet probably 40% of the eighty 20’x30’ foot plots were already flourishing and ready for harvesting.

Plant With Purpose staff and friends proceeded to get a brush-up on the background and history behind the

farm, along with stories of all the bureaucracies the IRC had to overcome to provide an urban community garden to benefit this neighborhood. Most of the people involved come from one of three San Diegan organizations: the Somali Bantu Organization of San Diego, Union of Pan Asian Communities and Proyecto Casa Saludables. Individuals only have to pay a small amount of money for water and then provide seeds for their land while all other costs are covered by IRC.

Amy was joined by Bilali Muya, a Somali Bantu man who works part time at New Roots as the farm manager and community advocate. They gave us a tour of the individual plots and even had a chance to hear from some of the farmers themselves as they proudly shared their plot of land with us. Each of the three ethnic regions that are represented around the farm have chosen a variety of vegetables to plant, including comfort foods from home that are overpriced at local markets.

New Roots may have had a rough start cutting red tape and paying city fees but momentum is rolling now and Amy talked about many strong partnerships that have formed within the community of San Diego. Two acres of land may not seem like a lot to most farmers, but to these families their plots are now a valuable source of nutrients, camaraderie, and even additional income if they manage to produce enough to sell at the local farmers market. Believe me, when you see this much cultivated farmland in the middle of a residential neighborhood you look twice and have to wonder. ‘What is going on there?’

Resources:

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_46_000_question/7685/

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/closer_to_farm/7746/

http://www.highstrangeness.tv/show_news.php?n=4936

Tanzania in 2008

by Corbyn Small Over the last year, Plant With Purpose witnessed significant growth an success in every aspect of the Tanzania program as small farmers worked together to transform their lives through Plant With Purpose's training, opportunities and encouragement. Most notably, the Village Community Banking (VICOBA) groups continue to grow and thrive. These groups bring communities together to raise capital for small loans to improve their farms and start small business initiatives. Women make up 80% of these community banking groups, and have reported an increase in self-esteem as they use their own profits to contribute to the household income, send their children to school and creatively implement business ventures.

Some stats from last year in Tanzania

-Plant With Purpose worked with community members to establish 30 tree nurseries for the purpose of growing new seedlings for reforestation and agroforestry efforts. By the end of the fiscal year, these nurseries housed a supply of 81,191 seedlings.

-125,891 trees were planted in reforestation efforts, bringing the program's 4-year lifetime total of trees planted to 273,405.

-Plant With Purpose worked with Tanzanian communities to operate t total of 23 VICOBA groups, which collectively distributed 530 loans in the total amount of $59,909. Group members contributed $59,422 of their own funds to use for these loans.

-532 fuel efficient stoves were provided to households for cooking and heating, reducing local wood consumption and improving respiratory health among community members.

-Plant With Purpose worked with farmers to construct living barriers and 363 soil contours, protecting hillsides from soil erosion.

-952 compost heaps were established, providing a safe, low-cost source of organic fertilizer for use on farms, tree nurseries, and gardens.

Thank you for your support of the Plant With Purpose programs, to learn more about Tanzania and the work being done there click here http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/

Plant a tree and transform a life

Scott Sabin, Executive Director of Plant With Purpose, is featured on SDNN.com today. Read his article to find out why planting trees does more than just reduce your carbon footprint:

Scott Sabin: Stop the carbon footprints

While talk of carbon trading is all the buzz these days, I have to wonder, can tree planting have a greater impact than merely soothing our guilty, carbon consuming consciences?

For many of the world’s poorest people, their very survival is contingent on the health of their environment. Of course the same applies to us, but in a much more removed way. It’s easy to forget that our bottled water actually comes from a stream or our prepackaged food may actually have been grown in this thing called soil.

Around the world, small farmers, desperate to feed their families, are forced to cut down large areas of forested land, clearing it for farming or to sell as fuel wood. The resulting erosion and loss of soil fertility leaves entire hillsides desolate and barren, entrenching poor farmers in a vicious cycle of poverty and deforestation.

For these desperate farmers, their environmental impact is literally drying up the streams that sustain them, eroding the hillsides they farm for sustenance, and threatening their very survival. Now. Not in twenty years when more ice caps melt and sea levels rise, but now.

We all know trees play an important part in reducing global warming, absorbing harmful CO2 and releasing life-giving oxygen, but the full benefits of trees go much deeper. Trees’ root systems provide living barriers that prevent soil erosion, replenish the water table, and restore desolate, unproductive lands.

To the affluent city-dweller, these may sound like fringe benefits, but to a rural farmer, completely dependent on the land for survival, a tree can be the difference between life and death, the difference between hope and despair, thriving and barely squeaking by, a better future for their children and a life entrenched in a vicious cycle of extreme poverty and hunger.

When trees are planted alongside crops-a technique called agroforestry-farmers experience all the benefits of trees while also providing nutritious foods and a sustainable income for their families. For example, Floresta works with farmers to utilize agroforestry and sustainable farming techniques, empowering them to overcome poverty, provide for their families, live in dignity, and fulfill their greatest dream of all-leaving the world a better place for their children.

So for me, the excitement of planting trees results when I can see how caring for the environment actually improves the lives of the rural poor: it’s fighting global warming plus reducing poverty plus restoring environments plus transforming lives. All while leaving the world a better place for our own children as well.

For those hungry to reduce their carbon footprint and do something to alleviate poverty in the world, remember that offsetting our own carbon footprint by planting trees can actually transform the life of a rural farmer. Today.

So plant a tree and transform a life.