Ecoworks International

OVERARCHING GOAL

To partner with, nurture, and bring resources to Haitian smallholder farmers so they can reach the highest level of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and sustainability.

MISSION

Enable farmers to cultivate an abundant food supply to feed Haiti, restore ecosystems, and advance social justice.

STRATEGY

Together with the farming communities, build Talia Farms, the regional development program that reflects our common vision, and to accompany them until they feel ready to take charge of the program, and their future.

Incorporate into all activities women’s equity, youth integration, and environmental stewardship. 

OUTCOMES

Create a regional agricultural production hub to enable smallholder farmers to supply wholesale markets through newly formed agricultural cooperatives they own and manage.

Transform subsistence farms into viable businesses, and make it possible for participating communities to establish their own fundamental services such as access to water and irrigation, improved sanitation, education, healthcare, and renewable power

Adopt technologies to base planning and programs on observation and data.

Become ready to establish local agroindustry and exports.

LATEST EWI NEWS

The Cooperative of Mare-Roseau and Ecoworks International Completed the Goat Project
It provided a three-day intense training in best practice of goat care to over thirty farmers, each farmer signed the CAMA-EWI contract obligating them to pay 20% of the goat’s price (their choice) and to give the first kid to the next family, the 20% fee was paid on time and the Project distributed eighteen goats. The next in line recipients to get the first-born kids are already trained and ready to welcome their baby goat.

 Results of the Goat Project
1. Farmers paid something for the goats, which gives them pride in their ownership, it helps weaning them away from dependency, and gaining a greater sense of agency. They are now stakeholder in the overall regional development program.
2. The Project reinforces the advantage of owning and managing a cooperative.
3. In five years, Mare-Roseau farmers will own five goats each, which will give them a solid financial footing.  At that point, more than 350 families will own goats.

The Goat Project was made possible by the generosity of the Rotary Club of Coral Gables, EWI's Board of Directors, and individual donors like you. The Cooperative of Mare-Roseau (CAMA) and EWI thank you for sharing our passion for supporting smallholder farming families in their quest to maintain their status of independent agricultural producers while seeking to reach the highest level of their autonomy, self-sufficiency, and sustainability 

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From the bottom of our hearts, Thank You, and Keep Safe.
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BREAKING THE CYCLE OF FOOD INSUFFICIENCY IN HAITI

Haiti’s food shortages – triggered by draughts, social unrest, flooding, epidemics, extreme poverty, and lack of a cohesive governmental support  – have been recurring over decades. The international response is to send large quantities of food by plane for countrywide distribution.

Sending food alleviates some of the immediate problems, but it also destroys long-term local food production. It perpetuates a cycle stuck in a continuous loop of food emergencies and international responses.

Instead, Haitian farmers need a ten-year, nationwide, effective development plan that increases farmers’ capacity to feed the country and respond to food shortages.  Eventually, farmers will be able to altogether prevent food emergencies in Haiti.

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Let’s do it right, do it now, be impactful, and support smallholder Haitian farmers so they and their families can feed Haiti and emerge from poverty.

OUR PROGRAM AND PROJECTS

TALIA FARMS COOPERATIVES PROGRAM

Economic Development Based on Farmer's Equity

EWI News

RECENT NEWS

COOPPERATIVES

  • The first of the five Talia Farms planned cooperatives opened in September 2019 – Click on The Marre-Roseau Cooperative icon to know more.
  • The Goat Project received full funding. As soon as the health crisis ends, we will purchase improved-breed goats. They will be sourced in Haiti to support local breeders. The women of CAMA are in charge of this project. 
  • CAMA plans to start a coffee production to diversify its crops, add a revenue stream, and use coffee trees as a reforestation project to mitigate floods, landslides and soil erosion.

ECOWORKS INTERNATIONAL

    • EWI is a member of Haiti Takes Root, Ayiti Vèt – a Haitian initiative to assemble organizations working in Haiti and practicing environmental stewardship. The coalition shares information and engages in advocacy to protect the environment.

When We’re Connected, We’re Stronger

ABOUT HAITI

Haiti is a country of great social and economic potential. Many of Haiti’s hardworking and industrious citizens are eager to join the global economy.
The country has tremendous assets: beautiful beaches and majestic mountains, waterfalls, and historical monuments; its rich culture, especially its literature, is one of the best and most innovative in the francophone world. Its music, painting and crafts; its hospitality and tasty cuisine; its strong independent life-force and an entrepreneurial spirit bode well to Haiti’s potential for a dynamic development. .
These features coupled with a stronger, more effective and ethical governance, a vigorous and comprehensive program for improving the country’s security, infrastructure, agricultural production, and technological advances would spur high economic growth.
Today’s reality for most Haitians, however, is that only about a quarter of its 11 million inhabitants have access to formal education and a steady income. The other 75 percent are mired in poverty, struggling to survive.
These circumstances make the majority of Haitians vulnerable to poor health and malnutrition, social and economic exploitation, corruption and violence, failing infrastructure, deforestation, the effects of climate change, and other forms of environmental destruction which, in turn, make the country even more vulnerable to natural and manmade disasters.
Furthermore, instead of feeding itself and the world, from fertile Caribbean soils – which has been damaged but can be restored – Haiti imports 70 percent of its basic food staples, as it was forced to lift all import taxes, which opened its market to heavily subsidized products from abroad, particularly from the United States. This contributes to Haiti’s heavy dependence on foreign aid, perpetuating the unfortunate title of the “poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.”
Haiti is so much more than that. Its people have always been proud, innovative, resourceful and fiercely independent. In fact, those attributes won them independence in 1804 when enslaved people of African origin won against their French slave owners and colonizers. That revolution made Haiti the world’s first independent Black republic.
But challenging the colonial world order came with dire consequences that still impact Haiti’s development today. In 1825, under the threat of invading Haiti again, the French colonial powers forced Haiti to pay a “restitution” to the former slave owners it had overthrown. Moreover, the implications that Haiti’s independence could have on other countries and colonies dependent on slave labor, such as the United States, sided with France and, together, declared an embargo on the newly independent Haiti that lasted 50 years. The “debt” to France cost Haiti the equivalent of 21 billion in today’s dollars. Paying this egregious “debt,” and facing the embargo, depleted Haiti’s economy and stunted its growth.
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Your Support is Vital

What if five year-old Kenel, eight years old Roseline, and twelve years old Nadia wouldn’t spend five hours a day carrying water, instead of going to school? With your support we can build rainwater catchment systems to free the children from this chore and send them to school instead.

What if hundreds of farmers could organize themselves into agricultural cooperatives so they can improve their productivity, sell more crops, earn more money, and be able to better care for their families. With your support the first of the five planned regional co-ops just opened its doors.

When you invest in small-scale farming families, you change their lives for the better and forever. 

Thank you!

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