Dear Friends

My name is Bazelais Jean-Baptiste and I was born and raised in Hinche, 75 miles northeast of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. I studied agricultural engineering (agronomy) in Port-Au-Prince, and returned to Hinche after graduating to work with the Papay Peasant Movement for the next 20 years.

In September of 1991, during a one-week trip to New York I was prevented from returning to Haiti as a result of the September 21st  military coup d’état. I was forced to remained in the U.S. So turning lemons into lemonade, I looked for funding and obtained a grant from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) to complete a Master’s Degree in International Community Economic Development in Southern University of New Hampshire. After that and still unable to return to Haiti, I founded in 1993 in Boston the Bassin Zim Education and Development Fund, which was originally named the  MPP-EDF.

At the end of 1994, I was able to return to Haiti to continue working with the peasants farmers and remained there supporting community development projects for the next 10 years until 2004 when I came back to New York.

The devastation left by the 2008 tropical hurricanes in Haiti gave birth to a new initiative to help my country and in particular the peasant communities.  Seeds for Haiti is a project launched in 2008 by the Basin Zim-EDF in collaboration with  a group of committed friends of Haiti.

Now, less than one and a half years after those devastating hurricanes, Haiti is hit by the deadliest natural disaster in its history, the January 12, 2010 earthquake that has caused thousands of casualties, countless wounded and more than a million displaced with no where to call home.

In the wake of the earthquake that has further devastated the lives of Haitians, our organization has developed a set of short and mid-term measures to improve some of the overwhelming conditions under which Haitians are living today.
 
In the short-term we are already providing food, shelter and medical supplies to as many victims of the earthquake as we can.
 
A mid-term goal is to raise $200,000 for seeds for the upcoming April plant season. This is cruxial because a good harvest will enable communities to feed themselves and others including earthquake victims which have fled to the country side.

Overall, the vision of the Bassin Zim EDF for Haiti is a sustainable agriculture that provides enough food to feed all the population, condition that requires, besides other things, a sustainable environmental program of forestation and land protection all over the country to bring and end to the process of desertification.
 
I invite you to be part of this effort in this moment of need in which your support of any size will have an impact in the lives of many.

 
In solidarity,

 

Bazelais Jean-Baptiste

President

Bassin Zim Education and Development Fund