At Bright Hope, we talk a lot about sustainability programs that bring Hope for Tomorrow, or in other words, a bright future for the poor. We love coming alongside a community and helping church leaders identify what's keeping people stuck in poverty. Then together, we get to uncover ways they can pull themselves out of destitution so that they can look forward to a better future.

Did you know that Haiti has the highest rate of food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean? In July of 2019, more than 5.4 million of its citizens were without access to affordable, healthy food. Those in the northwest and northeast sections of the country suffer the most, where thirty-four percent of the children are chronically malnourished.

There’s potential for agriculture, specifically rice production, in Ferrier, a rural city located in the country's northeast corner. However, many constraints prevent the farmers from being successful, the biggest obstacle being the absence of water.

In 2019, farmers like Paul* faced substantial crop losses due to drought.

Ironically, Ferrier has a good underground water resource; however, rice farmers like Paul have had no way to tap this water. Until recently, this underground reservoir has been useless for farming. But the tides are about to turn.

After countless meetings between the church development committee and local farmers in Ferrier, they agreed that an irrigation loan program could solve the community’s food insecurity problem. If the new irrigation program works as planned, it could revolutionize farming in dry Ferrier and provide a sustainable source of food and income for the whole community.

Haitian farmers have found themselves in a vicious cycle of poverty that could be broken by gaining water access for irrigation.

This is where it starts to get exciting. If we work together, we can make Ferrier’s plan for a crop irrigation program a reality.

Bright Hope is already at work with partner churches in the rural communities of Paulette and Ferrier. Working with these local churches, we’ve established a loan program for the irrigation project that will start in Paulette and then be implemented in Ferrier.

The idea is to loan irrigation kits to farmers like Paul within these two communities. Since the resources are limited, participants will be selected carefully. The church development committee will evaluate potential participants based on a criterion that considers: honesty, solvency, willingness to pay, level of organization, and experience in the field.

Once selected, each participant will receive, on loan, an irrigation kit**. Each will repay the loan with a 10% interest rate. As the loans are repaid, the funds will be reinvested in other farmers. It will be an on-going cycle of farmers helping other farmers, which is really rewarding!

**Each irrigation kit includes access to a water well, a water pump, solar panels to power the water pump, an irrigation system to cover the land the crops will be grown on, program oversite and training, loan tracking, and payment collection.

If the irrigation program goes as planned, each participant's income will improve. Paul, and others like him, will have access to water for crop irrigation, which will enable farmers to increase food production, food consumption, and their level of income. And since the project will be implemented in the form of a loan, the money recovered from the participants will be used to replicate the project.

Now when Paul catches his wife’s eye, he sees hope where there used to be fear. It feels good to work his land, knowing the results will bring food to satisfy their hunger and plenty of extra to sell.

The water irrigation program has the potential to eliminate the most significant barrier to food security and financial stability for Ferrier and Paulette farmers. Increased crop production impacts the quantity of food supply in the community and pulls many families away from the vicious cycle of food insecurity and low incomes. This program is intended to reverse that situation by addressing the most crucial problem and allow participants to trade a life of poverty for a prosperous future.

You can help hard-working farm families like Paul’s.

Providing agriculture kits for four groups of 12-20 farmers will cost $51,200. Each kit costs $12,800, of which $8,000 will be reimbursed by the combined efforts of three to five farmers. Please consider giving a generous gift of $50, $100, or even $150 to offset the remaining balance needed to fund Haiti’s water irrigation program.

Your gift will pave the way for a well-run program that welcomes new participants every six months and expiate the creation of a formal loan institution in the community that provide loans specifically for farmers.

As you reflect on all your year-end giving opportunities, thank you for considering the hard-working people of Paulette and Ferrier.

*Paul is a fictitious man whose story represents the struggle common to the rice farmers in Ferrier, Haiti.