Twelve years ago, we started our “Development for Sustainability” outreach programs by creating our Agricultural Training Center (ATC). Since that time, we have developed many demonstration gardens, edible plant nurseries, teaching classroom, developed and conducted sustainable gardening training courses, and instituted many “appropriate technologies” that immediately improve daily living conditions, such as compost toilets, running water, improved cooking methods, solar lighting, etc. etc.

All of our ATC programs rely on “demonstration” in addition to formal teaching. We demonstrate these many things that any Haitian family can achieve if they want to. Recently, we have been deepening our programs to include compatible projects such as family chicken flocks, bees for pollination and honey, dehydrating fruits to extend their season, teaching the importance of seed saving from planting season to planting season, and now even raising goats.

Here are some pictures of our new goat project, where we are demonstrating a system called “cut and carry,” where we keep the goats in pens instead of letting them roam free, where they can quickly destroy anything in their path. With the “cut and carry” method we confine the goats and bring fresh cut forage to them. The goats provide fresh milk and useful fertilizer every day, and occasionally meat and income to the families when they sell offspring. Goats are very useful to families for providing nutrition but also serve as a store of wealth as they produce young goats to raise for market.

When our students learn these new methods of sustainable gardening, they can ensure a food-secure life and some basic enterprise for their families. Through donors’ recent gifts to “sustainability”, we were able to purchase our first 4 goats to begin our goat husbandry project in our new demonstration goat pen. Please consider changing lives for generations to come by your best gift now to our “sustainability” projects. . . teaching Haitians to help themselves, . . . providing “food for life.”

 

God Bless you,
Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director