One Seed, One Hundred Women: Hope for a Better Life in Kenscoff, Haiti

Editor’s Note:  This article is part of our “A Community Comes Clean” series about nonprofits making a difference around the world.  To read the first article about Moksa Organics and their support of this community project, click here.

“Women Who Plant” (Fanm Kap Plante), the Earth Givers initiative in Haiti, is a conservation effort to help one hundred women from two villages in rural Haiti reforest their degraded hillsides with fruit trees.

Earth Givers and Jane Wynne (Wynne Farm Preserve) partnered in 2010 shortly after the devastating earthquake.  Jane, a soil conservationist and organic farmer told us that without the roots of the trees to hold the soil, the soils in Haiti will wash out to the sea and people will follow.  The soil is life of the people in Haiti and when it is washed from the mountains to the sea, few options are left for growing food.

We began to provide training and support for these women to start seed banks, create tree nurseries and restore their soil with organic farming strategies.  The women received hands on education in bio-dynamic farming, organic pest control, composting and soil restoration.


Our support and encouragement has resulted in the growing and planting of over 2,000 trees by these women in 2012.  Our Haiti partner, Jane Wynne, a soil conservationist and organic farmer says, ”Without trees, the soils in Haiti will wash out to the sea and people will follow”.   There is hope for the future of Haiti with each seed that is planted.

One Seed from Anthony dooley on Vimeo.

Earth Givers’ other unique initiatives are based on a model that incorporates community involvement to create locally generated carbon offsets.  These carbon offset support community development by providing free energy retrofits for low-income renters and native tree reforestation on local conservations lands.

Initiatives to sell these community based offsets have led to the creation of the Neutral Gator Initiative (created the nation’s first carbon neutral athletic program at the University of Florida), CREx, which supports music festivals (provided offsets for Bonnaroo and outreach/education for attendees), Neutral Gainesville, which engages local businesses and residents to offset and reduce their carbon footprint.

Our motto is “locally generated, locally applied”.  Check us out at http://www.earthgivers.org

Suzanne Cravey: Suzanne developed cultural programs for incarcerated boys for most of her career. In 2001 she went to a Greenpeace camp in Lake Baikal, Siberia a pulp mill that was contaminating the pristine waters of the lake.  When Suzanne returned she decided to change careers.  Suzanne went to graduate school at The Evergreen State College in Olympia and earned a masters degree in Environmental Studies.  Shortly afterwards her family decided to start a non-profit that would promote conservation, community development and social justice. Earth Givers was the outcome.

Environmental News from Living Green Magazine – Where Green Is Read

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