Since all women living in rural Haiti depend on agriculture to earn a living, our main priorities include, but not limited to, women’s access to and ownership of productive land as well as agricultural inputs and training needed to improve and increase crop yields without jeopardizing the environment. To achieve these objectives, we aim to implement these activities as follows:

 

a) Expanding women Rights to land access by 

• raising the awareness of both men about women’s land rights so that lands inherited from families of spouses be equally divided among heirs (men and women) and formalized by means of land certificate.
• providing the women with all legal assistance needed to secure land title they have acquired through inheritance
• helping the women cover legal fees required to access and occupy state-owned lands where only men would traditionally have had such privilege

 

b) Water and sanitation
Close 80% of the rural communities don’t have access to clean, fresh water. Only women and girls have to walk several kilometers back and forth to go fetch water often loaded with parasites from streams, ponds and springs. Waterborne illnesses, such as typhoid, cholera, and chronic diarrhea, are the cause of death among children and adults. To address this issue, the rural women and girls need water pumps that will help them access fresh and potable water. In addition, this water can also be used in agriculture, especially in vegetable gardens. Traditional hand water pumps are not conducive for agriculture due the significant physical exertion required for pumping the water. We propose photovoltaic water pump, which has proven a high technical reliability and economic cost-effective solution for powering water pumps using feasibility over other traditional systems like diesel. Technically, these systems utilize the free solar energy to pump water from a well, a spring or any other source to an elevated reservoir where water is to be distributed to consumers.

 

• d) Livelihood and food security

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, improving women’s access to productive resources (such as land) could increase agricultural output by as much as 2.5% to 4%. At the same time, women would produce 20-30% more food, and their families would enjoy better health, nutrition, and education. To expand women’s access to land and agriculture, we

• provide women with greater access to land, finance, and production inputs is critical to closing the productivity gap between men and women. Microfinance institutions and other financial service providers with presence in rural areas can play a key role in supporting women farmers.
• link the women to agricultural value chains: When women are linked to agricultural value chains from production all the way to processing and marketing, they help make traditional farming more productive and commercially viable.
• create opportunities for these women to access all technical assistance needed to start or improve women-led community credit unions in order to have the financial resources needed for agricultural input and small and medium businesses

 

d) natural resource management
developing these women’s and girls’ expertise in soil conservation and providing them with technical assistance to to plant fast-growing and drought resistant trees (moringa oleifera) and perennial plants (bamboo, vetiver) to restore the environment and soil fertility.  These trees and plants will provide healthy food staples to their families and livestock; and it will help them generate income all year around.