Konbit Pou Ayiti

What can I do in the face of food riots in Haiti? Our most recent appeal for funding focuses on the issue of hunger and sustainable solutions.

Dear friends,

The whole world seems to be hurting these days, and the pain is in the stomach. The rising cost of basic food staples worldwide has created great suffering in countries like Haiti. Here the price of spaghetti has doubled and hunger is a constant in the lives of most Haitians. In this region, rising food costs have been coupled with blackouts that sometimes last a week. These two trends threaten small merchants who cannot afford the constantly rising costs of doing business.

At the same time that the global economy is giving people so many problems, the earth is giving us our most gentle weather. The rainy season is characterized by long rains that nurture new seedlings and plants and cool mornings with overcast skies that make morning work in the garden easier. The trees are so heavy with mangoes that they have begun to dominate the landscape. Soon mango-anticipation will become mango-enjoyment and people will replace their hunger pangs with the rich, sweet fruit.

One of the biggest obstacles for Haitians to make a decent living selling their produce is lack of infrastructure – both to transport produce and to transform it. Take the case of the mangoes: here is a population suffering from frequent food shortages, but all the mangoes will be ripe at the same time. There will be temporary feast, but without any centers with equipment to transform the fruit (dry it, preserve it, or make it into juice) the moment will pass and hunger will return quickly.

KONPAY’s work on environmental issues is both local and national here in Haiti. In our own village and region we are:
• Building a new community garden to enhance nutrition throughout the year.
• Planting more fruit trees, but also introducing the miracle tree called moringa, for even more nutritional value.
• Planning a training and promotion program for alternative charcoal that uses biodegradable waste instead of wood.
• Helping to spread and share simple techniques for preserving and transforming fruits.

This Mother’s Day we are planning a very special event to honor Haitian mothers, Mother Earth, and your mother, too! You can celebrate your mom or any of the mothers in your life by planting a tree in her honor in Cyvadier, Haiti. We will send a beautiful card to arrive in time for Mother’s Day, May 11th, and on Mother’s Day here in Haiti we will plant the trees during a special event for the mothers of our Youth for the Development of Cyvadier (JDS) project. Click here for more details.

We want to use this fertile time in Haiti to plant the seeds for a better environment and better standards of living for all Haitians. Please make a donation of $150 to help sustain our work protecting the environment and fighting hunger here in Haiti.

For all of us at KONPAY, let me be the first to wish all the mothers out there a beautiful, blessed mother’s day!

Melinda Miles
Haiti KONPAY, Working Together for Haiti

P.S. Don’t forget to plant a tree for your mother before May 1st! For about the same price as a dozen roses you can honor her with a citrus tree planted in Haiti by the young people of Cyvadier, a gift that will live on for years under their care!