Agronomy

New Year, New Projects

Our first Board meeting of 2023 was devoted to reviewing and funding the new projects Etienne proposed for this year. Water: Colse is a mountain village without a nearby water source. Residents have to walk down the mountain for water, then carry it back up. Etienne will buy water storage tanks and transport them to the village. $7000 Goats: Etienne plans to start a goat program in Coquione, a village above Charbonnier. He needs money to buy the goats, transport them, and run the training program for the recipients. $7000 Seeds: Etienne proposed buying seed for farmers in Les Anglais. We are requesting that he also buy additional seeds to restart the community garden on church grounds. $3000 Agronomy Agent: Etienne recently hired a new…

June Updates

Though the Haitian people face many social and economic issues, they all remember the day their country won its independence from the colonial slave system: November 18th, 1803. May 18th was Haitian Flag Day. It’s usually a joyful day of celebration with school parades honoring Haiti’s rich history of freedom. Earlier that same year, on May 18th, Jean-Jacques Dessalines took down the French flag, ripped out the white band and had Catherine Flon sew the blue and red stripes together, creating the blue and red Haitian flag. Ever since that day, the Haitian people have celebrated May 18th as Flag Day. This year it has been difficult to celebrate. Gang violence and deep insecurity are inescapable realities. In the southern peninsula where Les Anglais and…

March Email Update

Great things are happening at our sister church and surrounding communities amidst the difficult problems Haiti is facing nationally. Haiti Ap Grandi serves our brothers and sisters in southwestern Haiti through our many partners there: Etienne Francois and his team at Passion for Haiti, Reciprocal Ministries International, and the Les Anglais sister church and school. Here are some projects recently completed and others currently underway.Disaster Recovery ActivitiesThe Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Foundation provided $2275 to purchase roof tins (corrugated metal roofing) through RMI to weatherproof damaged houses. $65 buys six 3×6’ tins, meaning 35 homes were re-roofed with these funds. Disaster Recovery Activities The Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Foundation provided $2275 to purchase roof tins (corrugated metal roofing) through RMI to weatherproof damaged houses. $65…

Goats Coming Soon!

On Monday of this week, we sent the $6691 that was donated during the Christmas season for the Kids for Kidz goat program to Etienne so he can launch the first Class of ’22. Etienne says there is not a shortage now of those goats, so he won’t need to import any. Even the special billy goats he sources from the US Virgin Islands are available. How lucky is that?  However, there are still many issues that could affect the goat program schedule: COVID, fuel scarcity and exorbitant prices for fuel, government instability, and social unrest. Etienne and his agents have managed to get a lot of other major projects done over the last several months despite these challenges, so we’re hopeful that they will be able…

Water Tanks, Goats, Seeds, School, and More

Haiti Ap Grandi continues to help those hit hardest by last August’s earthquake through our many partners on the ground in Haiti: Etienne Francois and his team at Passion for Haiti, Reciprocal Ministries International, and the Les Anglais church and school. Earthquake Relief October – December Water access for families and communities is a key focus for us. Many wells went dead after the earthquake and water storage cisterns were destroyed, leaving many thousands of people without water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. Thanks to you, Etienne and his team have already delivered twenty of the 300-gallon and 500-gallon chatados (water tanks) and plan to deliver more soon. In November, they finished planting tens of thousands of coffee and banana plants in Camp Perrin, in…

Bad News, Good News, and Hope

There is bad news for the Haitian people, and anyone wanting to go there and help them. You may have read in the news that gangs are taking power. The Haitian government and National Police are not able to stop them, so the deterioration of civic order is accelerating. The US government today advised Americans to leave the country while commercial flights are still available. The good news is that we raised over $30,000 for earthquake relief through Haiti Ap Grandi. We distributed just under half of those funds for the critical needs of people in the Pestel area near Jeremie on the northern coast of the peninsula, north of Les Anglais. There are no water wells there (no water table to tap into), so…