When Gillaine and Charles Warne first visited Haiti on a mission trip with Christ Church Episcopal, they fell in love with the country and its people but were struck by the suffering they saw. The couple, Australian immigrants living in Greenville, began working in a village in the central plateau region in 2000, and founded a nonprofit, Partners in Agriculture, to fight malnutrition and help families improve their economic futures. The organization’s impact has grown over time with the help of long-term Upstate partnerships.
Kelly Byers, director of philanthropy, said Partners in Agriculture supports community-led development to interrupt generational poverty and promote sustainable practices. Their model empowers high-potential Haitian youth and gives rural women farmers a pathway to support their families.
“We fully believe Haitians know the solutions to their problems,” Byers said. “They take the education, tools and training we offer and run toward what they define as a prosperous life for themselves.”
In 2012, the nonprofit founded an agricultural vocational school, Centre de Formation Fritz Lafontant. High school graduates enrolled in the school’s 2½-year program learn modern technical skills along with training in ethics, leadership, business management and community development.
“The students spend much of their time working on our teaching farms and in the villages alongside our trainers,” Byers said. “There’s a large entrepreneurship component to all of our work, helping them become job creators. As part of the 50% of Haitians under age 25, they are the future for the country.”
CFFL also provides materials for Partners in Agriculture’s community-development program, which gives families a“starter kit” of seeds, trees, tools, goats, chickens and basic equipment for a smallholder farm. The program works primarily with women raising children on less than $1.25 a day, providing a means for them to alleviate food insecurity and change their children’s life trajectories.
Byers said there’s a ripple effect when these farmers grow enough to take produce to market, earning money they can use to make improvements to their homes, hire neighbors to help with the harvest or pay fees so their children can attend school. They are asked to give a goat and seeds to the next family.
“It’s exciting to see them provide food for their families and invest in their communities,” Byers said. “The program is teaching them to be leaders and helping them garner the respect they deserve.”
Byers said Christ Church, the Rotary Club of Greenville and Clemson University have each played a key role in their work.
“The congregation of Christ Church has been working in Haiti for over 40 years, and has been an invaluable partner since our founding,” she said. “They fund farming and education and have arranged many work and discovery trips to Haiti over the years.”
Clemson University faculty and students helped establish best practices in goat breeding and Clemson Engineers for Developing Communities has assisted on various projects, including a student-based study and exchange program. Since 2005, the Rotary Club of Greenville has facilitated more than $1.5 million in funding for education, equipment and agriculture.
“Now we are looking to seed and scale more entrepreneurial ventures,” Byers said. “We look forward to working together with caring individuals and groups in the Upstate to ensure that many more families earn higher incomes and have climate-resilient livelihoods while restoring Haiti’s biodiversity and environmental health.”
To learn more or donate, visit https://partnersinag.org/
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