JP Spotlight!

"How a Tree is Helping Haiti: The JP Cashew Story" is a video courtesy of Partner For People & Place/JP illustrating how significant cashew trees are to Haiti!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKdfnro-9RQ

JP's agroforestry approach is to use trees to protect soil from erosion, conserve soil moisture, contribute to soil fertility (fix nitrogen), and realistically provide a source for the fuel that families need for cooking, wood for construction and furniture, and tree crops like cashew for cash crops.

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The seeds of a plant called "Jatrofa" produce oil, which can be used for products like soap and lotion. The origins of Jatrofa Projenou were with this special plant and hence its namesake. But JP has grown to be far more than just about the Jatrofa plant! This program is now centered on 4 objectives, the first two being Protecting Land and Farming Better. JP has its own tree nursery and partners with landowners to plant and care for trees and other plants. This helps fulfill the objectives of protecting the land, which has suffered terribly from deforestation and erosion, and also of farming better!

JP helps farmers earn more by focusing on cash crops and acquiring the means for value-added processing and access to markets. Pictured here is JP’s store, where various finished products are sold. Frequently earning more can best be accomplished by pooling resources and working together - for example, communities own cassava mills and bakeries built by JP. (Cassava is a tuber that can be ground up and made into flour and then baked into flatbread.) What you see here is a giant flatbread baking!

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JP's work is critical in growing trees in its nursery and enabling local families living on the land to plant them - offsetting carbon to limit the rising sea level, increase in hurricanes, and increase in droughts - all endured by our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

$15 is how much it costs to plant 10 trees and make a difference in reducing carbon and reforesting Haiti. Interested in helping heal the land in Haiti? Click here to donate today: https://tinyurl.com/43rfxrc9

Did the peppers pick us?

Many have called to ask if gang violence has come to where we work. Thankfully it has not but its economic spawn has, i.e. the shortages and high prices that hurt people who are living on the edge in the best of times. Like the women in the countryside who can’t get their vegetables to market because they can’t afford a moto-taxi. Fares have jumped out of reach to cover the price of gas. ($15/ gal = three day's wages at the local blue jean factory)

The result? Farmers are losing income, guys with motor scooters are losing customers, and markets are depleted. School cooks aren't finding what they need to prepare good meals and children are eating piles of white rice to fill them up. In a place where half the population are children, where diabetes and high blood pressure are endemic, and where the chances of good health past fifty aren’t great, this is gang violence in slow motion.

What can we do to help I asked the staff. “Peppers,” they replied, "and beans, papaya, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, squash, yams, and plantain." So in January we cleared land behind our building and put in a big ‘truck’ garden, like the kind that used to supply America’s cities a hundred years ago.

We are now growing vegetables to nourish our town. It’s a small act in the face of things, but we had to act and we did what we could. Did we pick the time to act or did it pick us? Working in Haiti I’m never sure.

Take care and thank you for your interest in Haiti.

Rob Fisher, Exec. Director

PARTNER FOR PEOPLE AND PLACE, INC./JP HAITI

A Quick Look at Haiti as the First Black Independent Republic

February is Black History Month, and it would not be complete without a look at Haiti, the first nation in the world to ban slavery, declare independence, and become a Black republic, reclaiming its original name, "Ayiti," while liberating itself from French colonial rule. Haiti is the only nation in history to declare freedom and independence after throwing off the chains of slavery. This was possible after an epic battle between the indigenous army led by General Capois la Mort against the French army on November 18th, 1803. The victory at Vertières paved the way for freedom and independence. 

Flag of the First Republic of Haiti (Image courtesy of the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

On January 1, 1804, the general in chief of the native army, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, along with all of the generals, denounced French rule and signed the Haitian Declaration of Independence. It was the first document to establish a free nation for everyone, regardless of skin color. The impact of this revolution shook the Western world, which quickly reacted by isolating the young nation through an embargo that slowed its growth.

Haiti served as an inspiration for African Americans historically. It planted the seeds of the American civil rights movement, as it was seen as a beacon of genuine self-determination, freedom, and equality, all of which were unavailable in the United States. Prominent Black American intellectuals W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass (who served as United States Ambassador to Haiti) were influenced by Haiti. The impact of Haiti on the African American experience was also felt in other ways, such as the work of the poet and activist Langston Hughes, who was heavily influenced by Haitian experiences and connections and spent much time in Haiti. For more information, check out this Library of Congress resource: Introduction - Freedom in the Black Diaspora: A Resource Guide for Ayiti Reimagined or this article from the Smithsonian: From Harlem to Haiti | National Museum of African American History and Culture