Mighty Mothers Around the Globe

by Stephanie Rudeen

I would like to thank all the mothers out there who have inspired their children, offered support, let their children experience life, and even kissed their boo-boos when they tried to jump off the top of the climbing tower, straight onto the cement sidewalk below (thanks, mom). And to celebrate the one day when mothers finally receive the attention they deserve, I would like to think about the mothers everywhere, especially in the countries where Plant With Purpose works.

I wrote a previous blog post about maternal health and the astonishing amount of women who die each year during pregnancy. Maternal health proves especially harmful and fatal in the impoverished countries where Plant With Purpose works, such as Africa. Although I do not want to detract from the global epidemic that is maternal health, I have some good news for all the mothers, and sons and daughters, in the world, especially those in Tanzania and Burundi – new data shows that maternal deaths are declining throughout the world!

In a recent New York Times article, “Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe,” researchers have found that the maternal mortality rate has dropped from 526,300 in 1980 to 342,900 in 2008. Although this is still a significant number, it gives hope that maternal health is finally receiving the attention it deserves, and eliciting appropriate action.

There are a number of reasons for the drop in maternal death rates, including “lower pregnancy rates in some countries, higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care, more education for women, and the increasing availability of ‘skilled attendants’ – people with some medical training to help women give birth,” according to the article.

The bad news, though, is that Africa still has the highest maternal death rates in the world. As more mothers all over the world have the health, knowledge, and resources they need to have a healthy pregnancy, there are still women all throughout Africa who die every day giving birth.

I don’t even know what kind of person I would be without the guidance and support of my mother, and I’m sure people all over the world feel the same way. The decline of the maternal death rate brings hope to millions of mothers all over the world, but don’t forget those mothers out there who still need help from people like you. Help Plant With Purpose bring hope to moms in Africa who need it the most. With improved income, improved nutrition, access to clean water, education for children, and spiritual growth, women everywhere can experience a long, happy life.

Consider planting trees this Mother’s Day to honor your mom, and help reforest Mother Earth. Visit our website by clicking here: http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/page/24/trees-please.html and choose to plant a tree, an orchard, a hillside, a grove, or even a forest. Entire communities will be changed in your mom's honor! Now that’s an incredible gift.

Oaxaca Wednesday: Cinco de Mayo Especial

by Stephanie Rudeen

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo has become an almost exclusively U.S. holiday, often observed through consuming excessive amounts of tequila and margaritas. Cinco de Mayo was originally meant to commemorate the 1862 Battle of Puebla, the victory of Mexican troops against Napoleon III’s French army, although Cinco de Mayo is often confused with Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16^th.

In Mexico, there is little celebration of Cinco de Mayo, and it is usually limited to the town of Puebla. This stems partly from the fact that shortly after the Battle of Puebla, the French army captured Mexico City and held their government there until 1867. Although Cinco de Mayo has become more of a U.S. holiday, that doesn’t reduce the significance of celebrating our neighbor to the South, or the many Mexican-Americans that reside all over the United States.

This Cinco de Mayo, try something new and celebrate the culture and rich history of Oaxaca, Mexico! I’m always a fan of food, especially because I believe food is a great look into the traditions and history of a place. Authentic Mexican cuisine is the result of Aztec, Mayan, and Spanish influences with sub-tropical ingredients like chili peppers, chocolate, jicama, and guava. Oaxaca itself is famous for its mole sauce, which is thick, sharp, sweet, with notes of smoke, sometimes clove and citrus, and always with heat from dried chiles. Oaxaca’s mole comes in at least seven basic varieties including negro, amarillo, almendrado, verde, coloradito, rojo, chichilo negro, and Manchamanteles.

Aside from its extraordinary food and mole sauce, Oaxaca has 16 formally registered indigenous communities and more speakers of indigenous languages than anywhere else in Mexico. Although we at Plant With Purpose often stress the help that Oaxaca

desperately needs, which is true, we can also celebrate Oaxaca’s rich diversity and traditions. We’ve been excited to witness community members in many of the villages where we work translate stories and prayers into their Mixteco language as well as teaching their children Mixteco oral traditions and folklore. Plant With Purpose empowers Oaxacan communities to not only restore their land and overcome poverty, but also to preserve their culture, enrich their communities, and build a better future for their children.

Although facing many problems, Oaxaca is an interesting and complex state with a fascinating story to share. So this Cinco de Mayo, put aside the margarita for a moment, and truly learn about our neighbor to the South.

Transformation in Thailand!

SAWAT DEE! Greetings from Panasawan, Thailand! Plant With Purpose is working in Panasawan to provide the community with relevant and sustainable options that address issues of poverty, lack of citizenship and related rights, and the loss of access to and degradation of forests and fields.

Read how Plant With Purpose is transforming lives in the village of Panasawan...

Jayaw Licha is a dedicated farmer with a wife and a child. With the help of Plant With Purpose, his entire family has seen great transformation in their lives! Plant With Purpose taught him sustainable agriculture techniques, such as interplanting crops with trees and using organic fertilizers and pesticides, which he applied to his farm.

Now his thriving farm produces an impressive variety of food year round—coffee and tea, corn and beans, mangos, bananas, and pineapple, just to name a few! His land produces enough to feed his family and he sells his corn for extra income. In fact, his farm is doing so well he no longer has to leave his community to work as a day laborer to support his family!

Jayaw and his son.

Terraces on Jayaw's agroforestry farm.

Reforest Mother Earth this Mother’s Day

This Sunday, honor your mom by caring for our dearest relative, Mother Earth. Instead of giving a gift that will wilt, consider planting trees in your mom’s honor this Mother’s Day.

Trees are vital to our earth’s well-being, as well as our own! They increase soil nutrients, restore watersheds, prevent hillside erosion, and enable poor farmers to live sustainably on their land while providing for their families.

At Plant With Purpose, our goal is to plant 1,000,000 trees this year in the six countries where we are working. A portion of those trees will be in Haiti where reforestation and investment in rural agriculture are critical needs.

To plant trees to honor your mom this Mother’s Day, visit our website by clicking here: http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/page/24/trees-please.html and choose to plant a tree, an orchard, a hillside, a grove, or even a forest! Only $1 plants one tree. Just think - entire communities will be changed in your mom's honor! Now that’s an incredible gift.

Sleepless in San Diego

by Colin Richard

Last Saturday Plant With Purpose joined dozens of other organizations in support of the 4th annual Sleepless San Diego event that took place at Liberty Station here in San Diego. Beginning mid-afternoon, hundreds of participants attended a free expo to learn more about the predicament of the approximately 10,000 homeless men, women and children that call the San Diego area home. Booths showcasing various businesses and organizations and their efforts to assist those affected by homelessness packed the periphery of a courtyard area in Liberty Station, while scores of cots filled the center. Live music, speakers and kids’ activities kept the scene lively. Individuals, and in some cases whole families, spent the night as well, some sleeping under makeshift cardboard structures as they sought to gain a deeper sense of empathy for what the urban poor of this city and others around the world experience daily.

Visitors to the Plant With Purpose booth were glad to see us, as usual. We often table at events such as these to share with others our commitment to alleviating poverty through environmental restoration, economic empowerment and spiritual inspiration. One initiative of Plant With Purpose in the countries where we work is helping to establish biointensive vegetable gardens to help the poor provide fresh, nutritious vegetables for themselves and sometimes for market as well. The big news at Sleepless was that a potential partnership is in the works between Plant With Purpose and San Diego Rescue Mission to develop a garden program that will provide both fresh fruits and vegetables and job training for the homeless

individuals at the Mission. We had an awesome example of a raised vegetable bed on display that drew hundreds of people into our booth to learn and get excited about the potential pilot project! Locally produced healthy veggies and San Diego volunteer opportunities coming soon to Plant With Purpose! Stay tuned for more updates as time goes on!

Plant With Purpose in Relevant Magazine!

Check out Plant With Purpose in the May / June issue of Relevant magazine and find out why caring for the environment will be key to Haiti's recovery: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/digital-issue-45?page=83

Please help us spread the word about our work in Haiti by adding this link on your Twitter or Facebook page!

Also, check out this review of Tending to Eden on Relevant's online Creation Care section: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/creation-care/features/20905-planting-with-purpose

Happy reading:)

Voices from Haiti: Displaced But Not Despairing

by Stephanie Rudeen

There are thousands upon thousands of examples of people who were displaced during the catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti in January. Within this tangle of displaced and suffering people, it can sometimes feel hard to relate to or understand such suffering. But hearing the individual story of a woman who has experienced this devastation somehow makes this event more real, more heart wrenching, and is a stronger call for action.

Fontes Oldil (pictured above) is a graduate of the Plant With Purpose-sponsored agricultural vocational course that Plant With Purpose began in the late nineties. Before the earthquake hit, she was pursuing university-level studies in agronomy in Port au Prince at the Episcopal agricultural college. She was preparing her thesis on tomato production and was scheduled to graduate in March, with many opportunities beginning to open in front of her. But then the earthquake hit on January 12. Her school was destroyed and 21 of her classmates were killed. Even more were killed at an extension campus and many others are still in the hospital. Fontes was lucky, she lived through the quake, but she was still injured on her head and leg.

The day after the earthquake shook Haiti, Fontes decided to leave Port au Prince and walk back towards Grand Coline. Fontes didn’t walk alone though, she was with a group of about 12 friends, all students, heading to Bodin and Meyer to try and put the pieces of their lives back together again. Like many other displaced Haitians, that first night of walking she slept on the road in Gressier. She didn’t eat while walking, too devastated and shocked, but only drank small amounts of water and soda that were given to her. After a second day of walking she made it to Carrefour Dufort where she stayed in the home of Andrise, a friend from Cherident. On the third day she finally made it to Meyer where her family is from. Now she finally has a place to temporarily call home, be it with eight others at a friend’s house.

Now in Meyer, Fontes is again working with Plant With Purpose. Fontes is the supervisor for 4 work teams of 20 people each. Her job is for two weeks, designed to rehabilitate the farmland and watershed while simultaneously allowing people to buy food and inject some cash into the rural economy. This way, Fontes will not have to return to Port au Prince, and can stay in Meyer with her friends and the possibility for hope through Plant With Purpose. Fontes is grateful for the opportunities Plant With Purpose has given to her, and though displaced, she is not despairing.

To help more Haitians recover from the devastating quake and bring hope to individuals like Fontes, Click Here.