"FOOD IS THE BRIDGE" Food For Life Sustainability Projects

There is a Creole Proverb that says, “An empty sack cannot stand…” It means that, when you are hungry, you are weak. You cannot learn as a child and you cannot stand to work as an adult. Food is first. It is always first for helpless children whose families have no jobs.

Love A Child is constantly busy finding and creating jobs! Here, at Love A Child, we have nearly 700 Haitians employed in various jobs. These Haitians are employed at our Jesus Healing Center, Children’s Home, our many schools, offices and more. A job provides food and care for a poor family for a lifetime. But God has also given us other ways of creating jobs such as our Agricultural Training Center and Poul Mirak (Chicken Co-op), reforestation with our Moringa trees, and Gwo Maché Mirak (Grand Miracle Market) and much more.

Rad Hazelip, our Assistant Executive Director, along with our agriculturist, Wilner Exil, have developed a wonderful Agricultural Training Center (ATC) where we teach poor farmers in remote areas how to grow crops with “literally nothing!” They see a dried-up piece of rocky ground become a green, beautiful garden! The young, eager students of the ATC learn to grow plants, make compost and grow productive crops. The trees grown include Moringa, Carambola, Mahogany, Acacia, and Neem, as well as Papaya, Cabbage, Onions, Tomatoes, Spinach, Eggplant, Okra, and much more. They become “miracle gardens” through hard work! After the students graduate, we provide them with garden tools and first-generation seeds! Little by little, this “dream” begins to grow... just like when God plants a seed in your heart to do something, it starts with something small. As we care for this seed, water it, baby it, watch over it and pray over it, God does bigger things! And we want you to be part of it!

Importance of “Edible Plants” in Haiti’s Agroforestry

A good example of an important “edible plants” reforestation project is growing and propagating Mulberry trees. Years ago, when we were starting our Sustainability Outreach and the Agricultural Training Center (ATC), we only had one donated Mulberry tree.

Now, we have 20 thriving Mulberry trees, bearing tasty and important fruit. Our ATC Director, Wilner, and the ATC staff are now growing another 1,000 seedlings to be given to many poor villages. One mature mulberry tree can feed the children and can also provide “free” feed for their free-ranging chickens. Besides the fruit, mature Mulberry trees also provide shade and stabilize the soil. This Sustainability for Development project is helping Haitians to help themselves for generations to come.