Happy World Environment Day!

Happy World Environment Day! Today, June 5, is an international day set by the United Nations to bring awareness to environmental issues. This year’s theme is “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.”

We celebrated this event in Cap-Haitien with a local women’s federation called AFLIDEPA. Over 30 members of the federation came to SOIL for a tour and presentation that focused on ecological sanitation and compost production. They are interested in making their own compost from kitchen and yard waste, and we couldn’t be more pleased to help out! Making compost from kitchen waste is relatively simple when compared to making compost from human waste. It's exciting to see people taking the initiative to capture and reuse nutrients in a country where the vast majority of garbage produced is organic material and where soil fertility continues to decline.

The federation requested that we serve only local food produced in Northern Haiti. In the morning, we served bread and yogurt from a company that's located about 5 miles away from our office, followed by a lunch of Haitian rice, chicken, and vegetables in the afternoon.

We ended the day by asking some of the women in the federation to share their dreams to celebrate the theme “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet.” Here are some of the highlights. What's YOUR dream?

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[caption id="attachment_8453" align="alignright" width="315"] "My dream is: to increase the percentage of forestation from 1.5% to 30%, which is the minimum people need to live well in this area."[/caption]

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[caption id="attachment_8466" align="alignright" width="315"] My dream is: for SOIL to work in my neighborhood.[/caption]

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[caption id="attachment_8452" align="alignright" width="315"] "My dream is: to fight for potable water for all people!"[/caption]

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