Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

La Gonave Honeybee Project hive building will be an opportunity for local woodworkers to build the hives.  This will allow for local experience in building the hives, but also will lower overall costs of building the hives.  The hives will be built using plastic barrels but many aspects of the hive will still be wood, such as the top bars. There will also be the traditional wooden hive boxes as well, which will require 100% wood.  Based on market prices in Haiti for wood, these types of hives may not be on a large scale production.  Still we hope to start the production of hives as early as summer 2016.  This will allow us to have the stock of hives ready for new beekeepers.  Our goal is to produce one hive per week.  While that sounds like a very small number, 4 hives per month will be more than enough to end out 2016.  We expect that the number of hives built each month to double starting 2017. Each hive will have everything needed for a hi...

A partner that is helping Let's Build Gonave Haiti, and Hurko has distributed sunflower seeds on the island of La Gonave at different remote villages on the island of La Gonave. What you need to understand about Sunflowers are they love the sun, hence the name, but also can provide oil, seeds for humans and chickens, but also the plant is loaded with pollen.  Often sunflowers will have so much pollen that the green leaves are covered in pollen dust.  Also the sunflowers produce nectar as well.  The plant is really a one stop shop for honeybees. By giving seeds away to different villagers, it allows the plant to be established, and then grow into a strong plant.  As the honeybee hives expand on the island, there is already established hardy plants for which the honeybees can rely on.  Even with no hives in the immediate area of the sunflowers, honeybees will explore the island to find what is within their flight range from the hive.  These sunflowers wi...

While many organizations will give to people that are in crushing poverty, many times that can create a major problem.  If people are enabled and not given tools to survive, then they have no choice but to rely on those that give hand outs. What happens when those that give the hand out runs out of cash?  What happens when their host economy takes a nose dive?  What happens when the food runs out?  Well this has happened over and over again.  This is one reason why Haiti is still in its current shape.  There is always a time and place for everything.  Just putting a band-aid on a broken bone not only gives a false sense of hope, but gives a great sense of hopelessness.  People of Haiti want to work!  People of Haiti want to go to school!  People of Haiti want to do for themselves! So expect change to happen.  Slowly it has on the mainland where you are seeing development, new tourist plans, better farming, etc.  On La Go...