My Nonprofit Reviews

Bringing ethanol-powered clean cooking to Haiti comes with lofty goals and some big challenges. However, having worked on the project with PPAF, I have personally seen the great potential it holds in turning around the poverty-deforestation-disease cycle that is currently crippling far too many people in Haiti. PPAF has obviously not shied away from taking on such a big challenge given how far the ethanol cookstove project has come and I credit that to their devotion to evidence-based practice driving their strategies.

During my time interning at PPAF, I have come to find that the smaller size of the organization has not stopped it from taking on a very important task in the field of sustainable development in developing countries. While working on their clean- burning, ethanol-based cook stove project that they have piloted in Haiti, I had the opportunity to visit the country to do some field testing with the cook stoves and even visit some of the hospitals to see how respiratory disease is affecting the people. I found the buzz phrase, "Helping people to break out of the poverty-disease-deforestation trap", to be very apt with regard to the potential impact of the project. Replacing charcoal with ethanol as a cooking fuel indeed provides a unique opportunity to bolster the Haitian economy while stopping deforestation and improving the health of the people. What I appreciate about PPAF is the manner in which it uses its strengths in networking to take this project off the ground. I have seen how PPAF aims to connect Haitian sugar cane farmers, grass-roots NGOs, and local organizations with the private sector and the international organizations that can provide the resources, expertise and funding needed to bridge the gaps. It has been a pleasure working with the organization and I am very lucky to have worked on such an important and amazing project. I hope PPAF is able to continue connecting people and organizations to help get Haitians out of what is indeed a poverty-disease-deforestation trap.

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