Mission

 

 

Founded jointly in 1994 by Haitians and Americans, the Lambi Fund of Haiti is a unique grassroots organization whose mission is to assist the popular, democratic movement in Haiti. Its goal is to help strengthen civil society in Haiti as a necessary foundation for democracy and development.

 

Constituency Involvement

 

The Lambi Fund of Haiti takes its lead from the peasant and women's organizations with which we collaborate. The Lambi Fund is based on the premise that the Haitian people understand how development is best achieved in their country. Therefore, the Lambi Fund follows the lead of grassroots organizations in program and priorities. The Lambi Fund never dictates to a community organization what should be done. Through discussion and reflection, the peasants decide what is best for their community and present the project to the Lambi Fund for support.

 

Program Areas

 

The Lambi Fund focuses its funding in five main project areas:

 

• Sustainable Development — Sustainable agricultural projects help increase food security and income for peasant families. Many of these projects benefit women, who bear more of the burden in the agricultural economy.

• Community Micro-credit — Members of a community organization band together to form collective micro-enterprise funds to provide one another with much needed capital to start self-sustaining community projects.

• Animal Husbandry — In rural Haiti, wealth is measured in pigs and goats. For years, as conditions worsened in Haiti, the number of pigs and goats dwindled. Thanks to the self-sufficient projects run by grassroots groups, pig and goat breeding is again on the rise and contributing to the economic development of rural communities.

• Environment — The conservation of Haiti’s waning natural resources is central to all Lambi Fund projects. Community cisterns and irrigation systems help communities secure safe and efficient water supplies while community reforestation projects curb deforestation – the most rapid in the Western Hemisphere.

• Organizational and Leadership Training — Alongside our routine technical and management training programs, Lambi Fund provides organizational and leadership development training programs for peasant organizations and women’s associations.

 

Proven Outcomes

 

According to a recently conducted evaluation of our first ten years of work, studies showed that Lambi Fund projects involved 76,896 entrepreneurial participants whose collective enterprises impacted 1,222,145 Haitians! Researchers found well-documented evidence that Lambi Fund projects create change with: improved economic conditions, increased availability of food, reduced soil erosion, improved environment, increased availability of potable water, increased gender equity, improved democratic functioning, increased management capacity of organizations, and increased collaboration among grassroots organizations. Read an executive summary of the ten year evaluation.