The Lambi Fund of Haiti

Spring 2006 Newsletter — Contents

Continuing Sustainable Development

Action towards achieving self-determination.

Because of the support of people like you, nine new projects are in the preliminary stages: community farm projects, microcredit funds, a pig and goat raising project, a fish raising project, two community cistern systems and four large reforestation projects (although all of these new projects have a reforestation component).

Progress towards self-sufficiency.
As a result of your past support, 15 small-scale economic development projects became self-supporting, including grain storage projects, grain mills, community cisterns, irrigation systems, ox plow services, pig raising projects, micro-credit funds, and tool bank projects. Food production was increased for projects in the South. Food production was increased for projects in the Artibonite Valley but many of those harvests were destroyed by the flooding from Hurricane Jeanne.

What were the major challenges in 2005?

The Lambi Fund staff living in Port au Prince has been under a lot of pressure, with the unrest due to the social, economic and political conditions in the country. Visiting U.S. Board and staff members were kidnapped in April and thankfully released safely, minus their money, laptops and other valuables. It is sometimes difficult for the Lambi Fund staff to travel to the provinces because of this unrest. Our two Field Monitors (Tidjo in the Artibonite and St Cyr in the South) have been lifesavers as they have been able to take on increased responsibilities when the program staff from Port au Prince could not travel to the countryside. The Field Monitors have been able to monitor, evaluate and provide field support to projects. When the insecurity level decreased, Ferry (Lambi Field Director) and Paul (Lambi Assistant Field Director) made visits to rural organizations and conducted trainings.

Public transport has become very expensive. The price of gasoline has doubled or tripled. The price of everything the peasants need seeds, tools, water is high. The economic situation is not improving and this demobilizes people as they focus exclusively on survival. For these reasons, in 2006 Lambi Fund plans to work more on projects that encourage food production in order to address the reality of hunger and high prices, and also with environmental projects in order to counteract the effects of ecologic devastation

In view of all this, how did the Lambi Fund manage to maintain operations and help grassroots organizations? This is a testament to the ability of the Haiti staff to maintain its course in a country of conflict and strife. Because the program staff of the Lambi Fund consists entirely of Haitians who live and work in Haiti and have many years experience as activists and agronomists, the Lambi Fund staff knows the terrain, the culture and how to flexibly deal with challenging situations.

While the news media in 2005 focused on the deteriorating security situation and the elections in Haiti, the Lambi Fund of Haiti's priorities were intensifying reforestation efforts, increasing peasants skills and knowledge through expanded training, and recovering from the damage incurred by Hurricane Jeanne. These priorities responded to the needs of our partner organizations and took place in the context of our ongoing commitment to support economic justice, democracy and sustainable development.

Working on the Deforestation Problem Reforestation. Many of our grassroots partner organizations experienced lower food production due to floods or drought. These extreme weather conditions are emblematic of the massive deforestation and consequent climate change in the area. Lambi Fund began an aggressive reforestation policy in 2005 whereby all Lambi Fund projects must now include a reforestation component.

Thanks to your support, Lambi Fund is working with peasant organizations in Haiti to help fuel a grassroots reforestation movement. After reflection on the reforestation issue, Lambi Fund and its partner organizations now have two levels of reforestation:

1. Small reforestation projects that are a sub-set of a larger sustainable development project. These projects are planting 10-50,000 trees each.
2. Large environmental projects whose main focus is a major reforestation effort. These projects are planting 50-100,000+ trees.