Partner For People and Place, Inc.
is a publicly supported charity (501c3), whose purpose is to aid people in need and protect the environment. It is governed by a Board of Directors, who have professional backgrounds in planning, landscape architecture, natural science, engineering, business, international social work, public administration, construction, and computer science. Rob Fisher is its Executive Director. Its EIN is 65-1209037.
OUR VISION
When people can develop their talents and wisely use the land they live on, they can transform their lives. Helping people make that journey is what we do.
HOW WE WORK
Everyone knows that in education smaller classes are better than big ones - more attention to the individual, better response to special needs, more adaptability. The same goes for what we do. We work with one family at a time like a small class. It is typically multi-generational with ten to twenty adults and children. And, like good education, what we do doesn’t happen overnight. We work with families for a year to make sure they succeed and after that we remain on call, like the extension agents in America’s farm country. How we work explains why we succeed.
History
2000 - Partner For People And Place was founded by Rob and Barbara Fisher and Josh Koons - all landscape architects in private practice - to address critical human and environmental needs that were not being addressed by fee-based professionals. They came face to face with such unmet needs, when they visited Haiti at the invitation of a Haitian educator, who was building a school, After assisting his effort, they were compelled to remain to address the endemic poverty they saw.
2004 - Partner For People And Place, Inc. (PPP) was incorporated as nonprofit organization in the State of Georgia.
2005 - In reaction to the environmental impact of charcoal-making in Haiti and the reality that it will continue to be used for cooking fuel for decades, Partner For People And Place executed a pilot project that showed how high efficiency pyrolysis can produce more charcoal from wood than traditional methods. This led to the potential of another plant-based biofuel - the seed oil of a native tree, called Jatrofa.
2007 - Rob met Kathleen Robbins, an American business woman working for a nonprofit in Haiti who was also considering the use of Jatrofa for biofuel. Kathleen came forward with a proposition and some seed money for a project to grow Jatrofa for biofuel. She and Rob would run the project. PPP agreed to take it on and widened the scope to address some other aspects of poverty. It set up a full time field office, called Jatrofa Projenou (JP) with a Haitian staff in the town of Terrier Rouge,
2008 - JP introduced the cultivation of Jatrofa to subsistence farmers, helped them prepare and plant their land, and guaranteed purchase of their harvests. Concurrently, it developed products that can be made from Jatrofa - initially biodiesel, then soap and body products. The purpose was to (1) create a cash crop for poor farmers that could grow on difficult land, (2) provide the raw material for a local value-added product that could be sold in the Haitian economy and (3) bring money into the local economy.
2010 - JP responded to the earthquake disaster by employing displaced persons from Port au Prince in its Jatrofa project.
2012 - JP received a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and built a crop processing facility at its headquarters.
2013 - JP was recognized as a leader in agriculture and innovation by the United Nations World Food Program.
2015 - PPP’s work in Haiti was featured in LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.
2016 - JP established a program to address accelerating mountain deforestation in Northeast Haiti and established a nursery to grow trees for reforestation and for nut and fruit production.
2019 - After a devastating yearlong drought and inflation caused widespread hunger, JP established a program to increase the local food supply and resilience.
2020 - JP became a legal Haitian entity that exists for the benefit of its members. JP Savon, which produces soap an body oil products, became an independent Haitian business. It sells its products throughout Haiti and buys Jatrofa from hundreds of farmers across Haiti. It is a successful model of how local farm-based economics can reduce poverty.
JP Haiti (formerly Jatrofa Projenou)
Staff and Facilities - JP has a staff of ten Haitian nationals with specialists in agronomy, forestry, manufacturing, marketing, and business. Throughout the region, the staff are known and trusted, which helps explain their effectiveness.
JP’s facilities include a crop processing facility, a tree nursery, a demonstration farm, a research farm, a goat breeding facility, an apiary, and a store for marketing and selling products.