We currently lease 319 acres outside the town of Thomonde, Haiti, where we grow the native elephant grass to make sustainable charcoal briquettes, reducing deforestation and lowering the cost of fuel for consumers. You're donations will help us eliminate the need for harvesting of Haitian forests with the end goal of reforesting denuded land.
The Thomonde region has over 80% unemployment and an average annual family income of less than $500. The lack of education has left over 80% of residence functionally illiterate. Haiti has deforested 99% of its forests and continues to harvest a million trees per year for the charcoal needed to boil water to make it less toxic. Without a sustainable alternative the problems of deforestation (flooding, mud slides, loss of top soil, soil infertility), will continue.
It will create hundreds of jobs paying $5-$7.50 per day and offering medical and other benefits through the reinvestment of 50% of revenues into local infrastructures, including roads, water projects, medical clinics and schools. We have also designed all jobs to be done at the current literacy levels of employees and through the expansion of local schools, we will offer education to the families of all our employees.
This project will over the next few years create hundreds of jobs, lower the cost of charcoal by 25% - 50%, and improve the quality of life through infrastructure improvements. These improvements will continue as long as there is need for charcoal, which is currently used by over 90% of Haitians for cooking and heating. The project will grow throughout the island, with the goal of establishing 250 small businesses.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
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