Planting hope, restoring forests, nourishing communities. This is the motto of Sustainable Harvest International, a non-profit organization that has worked with nearly 1,000 families and 900 students in Honduras, Panama, Belize and Nicaragua. These participants have “saved tens of thousands of acres of tropical forest from slash-and-burn destruction by converting thousands of acres to sustainable uses. With organic vegetable gardens, wood-conserving stoves, community loan funds and a host of other projects, participants dramatically improve their health and boost family income.”
Since 1997, SHI, along with their participants, have:
Planted more than 2,000,000 trees.
Converted 6,000 acres to sustainable uses, thereby saving 30,000 acres from slash-and-burn destruction.
Improved nutrition through the establishment of more than 200 organic vegetable gardens.
Increased farm income up to 800%.
Built 165 wood-conserving stoves (saving 1,650 trees per year)
In the community of Rio Blanco, SHI assisted six men in establishing a small community store. This store will buy and sell corn, beans, and bulk products, while giving the community a place to purchase products closer to where they live. Hipólito, a member of the business management team said, “In the case that one of the families is without money to buy corn, we can provide them with it.” Just nine months after the SHI donated the initial $375 to start the store, it has grown to over $790; the men more than doubled their profits, and instead of paying themselves they plan to continue building the business to better all of the community. Hipólito stated, “little by little we are improving and growing. We know that with sacrifice and work we are slowly improving the economic situation for ourselves, our families and our community.”
Through establishing community stores, loan programs, school programs, organic gardens, fish ponds, wood-conserving stoves, and more, Sustainable Harvest is not only working on improving the environment, but the lives of the people living in the area as well.
Now, to make it even easier to help out SHI, the environment, and the 1,000 families SHI has worked with, Stonyfield Farm is featuring SHI along with two other non-profits on their yogurt lids! Vote online, or mail in clean yogurt lids with your vote for SHI to direct a portion of $40,000 to their programs, while receiving great prizes in the process, such as free organic chocolate and tea.
Visit http://www.sustainableharvest.org/yogurt for more information on SHI and on how to “Bid With Your Lid.”
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Jessica Schessler is a college student interning for the summer with a non-profit organization, Sustainable Harvest International. She is trying to spread the word about SHI’s work, and also about the great program that is featuring them on Stonyfield Farm’s yogurt lids. SHI really does great work teaching farmers in Central America alternatives to slash and burn farming. This not only saves rainforests, but leaves the farmers and their families with enough organic crops to feed themselves and sell extra crops for income.
OK, not really. But I bet that caught your eye. No actually the blog Global Poverty Monitor is having a contest right now to get coments and links back to them. The contest, called Promote My Blog and Win a Goat, is a call for people to leave comments on as many of the posts as you can and leave link back to the blog. The more your do the more points you get, and at the end of two weeks time the one with the msot points wins a goat. Specifically the winner gets a goat given to a family in Myanmar in their name.
Activist Mommy 