Join TWP for the Lakota Past & Present Adventure: A Journey to the Home of the Oglala Lakota

May 12th-16th & September 11th-17th , 2010
Cost: $975
(Cost does not include travel to South Dakota)

Just 200 years ago, the Lakota occupied a vast section of the Great Plains, stretching over what are now seven states. Families traveled with the seasons, following the bison, sustained by the land. The clash between Native people and European colonists left a battered remnant of the Lakota Nation stranded on isolated reservations, their traditional livelihood destroyed.

If you visit Pine Ridge with us though, you will see and experience the strength, pride, humor and enduring culture of the Oglala Lakota. Despite hardship, the Lakota have nourished and preserved their spirituality, culture, and ties with their land.
Now, through people like our partner Henry Red Cloud, the Lakota are using renewable energy to improve living conditions and create economic development, while honoring their traditional connection to Mother Earth.

Come visit Pine Ridge, work on renewable energy projects with local people, and discover for yourself the new energy and hope that is rising in Indian Country.

Participants will camp or stay in a dorm at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center. We will visit historical sites, learn about Lakota history and culture from tribal elders, and help plant trees and build solar heating systems with the local families.

View our E-Flyer for a tentative itinerary!

For more information about Trees, Water & People’s Tribal Lands Renewable Energy Program please visit http://treeswaterpeople.org/tribal/tribal_intro.htm

Open Hearts for Haiti Fundraiser Will Benefit Trees, Water & People

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) Melissa (RPCV Haiti) and Joe Basta (RPCV Dominican Republic) will host the Open Hearts for Haiti fundraiser, Thursday, February 11 at the Fort Collins Country Club.  The couple, who met while serving as volunteers in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is organizing the event to benefit three non-profit organizations working in Haiti, including the Haitian Education Leadership Program (H.E.L.P.), Partners in Health (PIH) and Fort Collins-based Trees, Water & People (TWP).  One hundred percent of proceeds from ticket and auction sales will benefit the three organizations.

The event will feature a silent auction of Haitian art and crafts.  Art featured at the event will include a mix of paintings, stone and wood carving, oil-drum metal work and more.  Items donated are from galleries and private collections from across the country. The event signature piece featured on the invitation, a sequined Haitian flag, will be included in the auction.

Entertainment will also include a live performance by an international drumming circle out of Boulder, CO.  In addition to the performance guests will enjoy a sampling of Haitian themed hors d’oeuvres.

To buy your tickets today please visit www.openheartsforhaiti.com

WHO: Event hosts Joe and Melissa Basta, Representatives from Trees, Water & People

WHAT: Open Hearts for Haiti Fundraiser and Silent Auction of Haitian Art and Crafts 

WHEN: Thursday, February 11 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Event Tickets are $50, Hors D’Oeuvres and Cash Bar.  Beer provided by New Belgium.

WHERE: Fort Collins Country Club

TWP Joins with Pura Stainless in Green15™ Partnership

Trees, Water & People (TWP) has recently partnered with Pura Stainless, a 100% BPA free water bottle manufacturer, as part of the company’s Green15™ program. Through this innovative partnership, TWP will receive 15% of all Trees, Water & People logo water bottle sales. In addition to the many environmental benefits of a TWP/Pura Stainless water bottle, purchases will support TWP’s efforts to help communities protect, conserve, and manage the natural resources upon which their long-term well-being depends.

Pura Stainless bottles are crafted from food service grade electro-polished stainless steel. These bottles are 100% BPA-free, do not leach harmful chemicals like plastic bottles, nor do they require fragile and funky chemical coatings like aluminum bottles. And, unlike other bottles, the lids are also made from stainless steel. To purchase your TWP water bottle today click here!

Help TWP and StoveTec Send Hundreds of Stoves to Haiti

Click here to donate a stove to a Haitian family in need!

Trees, Water & People and StoveTec are raising money to deliver clean-burning stoves to Haitians in need!  The two organizations have combined resources to get Rocket stoves to Haiti as soon as possible, with the first shipment of 432 stoves arriving tomorrow.  These stoves burn up to 70% cleaner than the open fire, substantially reduce deforestation, and provide a healthier environment for cooks and their families.  Since the devastating 7.0 earthquake hit two weeks ago, the need for fuel-efficient stoves in Haiti has elevated dramatically.  With these stoves, Haitians will be able to sanitize water and provide hot meals to their families in a safe, efficient and healthy manner.

We are pleased to have the UN World Food Program distributing the first shipment of Rocket stoves for Trees, Water & People tomorrow, but we can’t stop there!  We have begun a joint fundraising drive to send a second shipment of StoveTec’s 2-door Charcoal/Firewood hybrid stoves to Haiti.  Our goal is to fill a 20 foot container with 1,344 stoves.  For only $20, you can provide a full service solution to a family in need, including the stove, transportation, warehousing, as well as stove placement and tracking.  Please join us in this important cause!

Please visit www.stovetec.net to learn more about StoveTec’s work.

For more information about Trees, Water & People please visit www.treeswaterpeople.org.

Haiti Emergency Relief UPDATE: AMURT’s Weekly Strategies and Developments Report

AMURT urgent care clinic in Haiti

Demeter, an AMURT representative in Haiti, writes to Stuart Conway, Trees, Water & People’s International Director, “We are responding to this disaster with the goal of coming forward with a very strong integrated strategy which is sustainable and model in many different aspects, particularly its community-based approach. It will be great if we work together to fundraise and support this effort.”

The following is AMURT’s weekly strategies and developments report for their programs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

INITIAL RELIEF EFFORTS
When the earthquake struck Haiti, AMURT-Haiti’s experienced and tested staff were on the ground both in Port-au-Prince and in the Northwest Arbonite. Our team response was immediate and impactful. Since the first day of the disaster AMURT has been applying its community-based Emergency Management Response Plan, which had been honed in Gonaives in the days and weeks after the 2008 hurricanes. The first steps involved facilitating the transfer of food, medical services, water, and non-food items from the large aid agencies into the hands of the smaller community-based groups who are best positioned to effectively facilitate distribution. The initial intervention targeted those most heavily impacted by the earthquake, providing transport of wounded and supplies to hospitals, and assisting residents in the slum areas of Boudon, Cite O’Kay and Cite Jereme. During the first 7 days following the disaster, AMURT assisted more than 15,000 residents, providing daily mobile medical clinics, hot soup kitchens and the distribution of dry food rations.

FOOD
For a number of years, AMURT-Haiti has been one of the World Food Program’s principal partners in Haiti, providing emergency food distribution and food for work development projects in both Port-au-Prince and the Northwest Arbonite. On January 20th, the two agencies signed an Emergency Management contract, open ended in quantity, which allows AMURT to distribute food to its local community-based partners. AMURT has already begun its first major food distributions, initially prioritizing orphanages, refugee camps, slums, local charity groups and community organizations. In the first week, the distribution will include 15 metric tons of rice, beans, canned food and oil for approximately 20,000 area residents of Boudon, Cite O’Kay and Cite Jereme. This will increase in subsequent weeks to include the greater population of these areas which is over 40,000. AMURT is also preparing its local partners in the areas of Delmas and Boudon to gradually increase these distributions to include 60,000 people a month over the next 3-month period. The NGO’s goal is to transition from emergency food distribution to food-for-work community-based programs within the first 3-month period of intervention.

MEDICAL
AMURT-Haiti has been providing daily mobile clinics in the valley communities of Boudon, reaching out to the most isolated slum areas. In Delmas, AMURT is working with our community-based partners providing logistical support and community facilitation, transport of medicine and patients, and providing support for medical volunteers who are beginning to arrive in greater numbers. On January 24, our first AMURT medical team will be arriving, beginning the process of rotating teams in week or two week long shifts, providing mobile clinics in the areas of Delmas and Boudon. Over the next weeks, AMURT will continue expanding support for its established network of community-based partners, to ensure that supplies arrive in time, are directed to where they are most needed, and that no one remains without medical support.

ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY
Simultaneous with its emergency response, AMURT-Haiti is maintaining its long-term focus on developing sustainable solutions for Haiti’s historically challenging problems. In this regard, working with its long-term partner Trees, Water, & People to bring more than 300 Ecological Rocket stoves, a low cost and sustainable cooking solution using scraps of wood and branches. AMURT is initiating a stove usage training workshop for the informal camp committees in Boudon and Delmas in the use of the stoves, helping in this way to mitigate the environmental impact of the disaster. The stoves will be part of AMURT’s facilitation allowing local committees to manage mass canteens for the neighborhood’s most vulnerable groups – children, elderly, sick, and people with disabilities.

COMMUNITY FACILITATION
AMURT-Haiti’s greatest strength has always been its development of and relationship with grassroots organizing and local leadership. AMURT has continued facilitating this work through daily assessments of needs and capacities, holding community forums, and implementing strategies to a decision-making process that is all-inclusive, systematic, and efficient. Our community facilitators have been covering the affected areas immediately surrounding our two bases, in Boudon and Delmas 31, identifying leadership structures, attempting to provide seamless coordination in ongoing food distribution programs. Once stability has been established, the next phase, planned to begin in 2 weeks, is the initiation of regional coordination councils, that will be maintain overall communication and coordination of our community-based disaster response. The goal of this process is the reduction of inevitable coordination and communication gaps inherent in large-scale disaster response, and the preparation and implementation of a sustainable community-based recovery phase.

RECOVERY PHASE
AMURT will continue to align both its immediate and long-term response through the lens of the human rights-based framework of community empowerment, self-determination, and leadership capacity building. With its long-term strategic partners, AMURT has begun planning longer-term sustainable programs focusing on nurturing and reinforcing patterns of decentralization, sustainability, and local self-sufficiency so critical to Haiti’s future.

For a better understanding of this approach, please view AMURT’s past and current community-based projects at www.amurthaiti.org

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund Update: Email from AMURT

Haiti emergency relief provided by AMURT

We recently received an email from Dinali Abeysekera, an Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT) representative, who wrote to thank all of our donors and their thoughtful contributions.  AMURT sends “a huge huge thank you” and the following update:

“Amurt just sent another team down to Haiti today via Dominican Republic. They have been having marathon planning sessions the past few days, trying to make effective decisions on how best to approach this terrible disaster. So far they’ve created a large makeshift clinic on a soccer field, and have been receiving an immense amount of patients. They are also working with the idea of evacuating people out of Port Au Prince into the northern commune, enabling them to access food, water, shelter and staying clear of violent areas. At this point the only option is to get aid and medical resources in as quickly as possible, to prevent further injury, disease, and death. The money Trees, Water & People has raised will be put to very good use!”

Thank you to our friends who have contributed! We made our 1st wire transfer today! A week of fundraising has brought in close to $16,000. Please continue to share with your friends and loved ones how they can contribute to the Haitian people.

Merci anpil!

HAITI EMERGENCY EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND

The people of Haiti need your help. Yesterday, a 7.0 earthquake devastated the capital city of Port-au-Prince, leaving hundreds of thousands of our southern neighbors in dire need. Trees, Water & People (TWP) has established an Emergency Earthquake Relief Fund for Haiti to help the millions of victims in this shockingly poor country.

According to Haiti’s Prime Minister, more than 100,000 people are feared dead due to this major earthquake that rocked the capital on Tuesday afternoon, sending aftershocks that are still battering the country. Many of the capital’s 3 million people are now homeless, as their houses have collapsed into rubble. Gravely injured people are sitting in the streets with nowhere else to go. The epicenter of the quake was only 10 short miles from the capital, so homes, office buildings, and even the U.N. Headquarters have been flattened to the ground. Many of the poor in this mountainous city by the sea lived on the hillsides in sub-standard housing that slid down the steep slopes when the earthquake hit.

TWP has been working in Haiti for the last three years with our Haitian partner, the Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT) on projects of reforestation, improved cooking stoves, and clean drinking water. AMURT also has extensive experience in emergency relief.

Today, we are asking you to donate what you can to help the vulnerable people and country of Haiti. Your gift of any amount will enable TWP and AMURT to provide nourishing food, clean water, and critical medical supplies to victims so they can survive this disaster and overcome the difficult times that follow. Be assured that every penny of your contribution will go directly to these efforts – no processing or administration fees will be taken by TWP.

Thank you for caring and giving what you can. We hope that you will keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers during this time of intense tragedy and in the years of rebuilding and recovery ahead.

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TREES, WATER & PEOPLE AND JOBCOMB: HELPING JOB SEEKERS AND THE PLANET

Trees, Water & People and Jobcomb are announcing a new partnership to help not only job seekers and employers, but also our environment. Jobcomb, an online resource dedicated to green jobs, will generously donate 25% of all listing revenue to environmental nonprofit organization Trees, Water & People to support their global sustainability efforts.

Trees, Water & People and Jobcomb are excited about the opportunities this partnership can bring. Scot W. Vaver, COO of Jobcomb explains, “This partnership assists Jobcomb in fulfilling our company’s mission of helping our environment for generations to come, allowing us to help employers find qualified candidates for their organization while at the same time knowing that they are taking steps in helping the environment with each job listing. The employers can also feel confident that with Jobcomb they are getting national and international exposure and will be achieving what they would have on other job boards at a reduced cost.” Scot further adds, “Job seekers benefit from reviewing not only Jobcomb listings, but also Indeed’s nationwide job listings. The job seeker can feel confident that Jobcomb lists thousands of opportunities with green and renewable energy companies.”

This new partnership between Trees, Water & People and Jobcomb makes it possible for an environmentally-conscious job seeker to make a difference for the planet today while searching for their future green career.

About Jobcomb

Launched in 2008, Jobcomb focuses on all aspects of green and renewable energy jobs globally. The goal is to become the leading directory of green and renewable energy jobs and make it easy for job seekers and employers to find each other. All employer listings are available globally on Jobcomb and Indeed.com, another leading search engine for jobs. For job seekers, Jobcomb compliments its own green job listings with those provided by Indeed.com. Jobcomb offers an array of useful tools for both employers and job seekers. More information about Jobcomb can be found at www.jobcomb.com.

Henry Red Cloud and Richard Fox Visit the Wind River Reservation

Richard Fox and Henry Red Cloud at the Wind River Reservation

Last week Richard Fox, TWP’s National Director, and TWP’s Lakota partner, Henry Red Cloud, visited the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming to demonstrate how our solar furnaces heat homes, using clean energy from the sun. During interactive workshops, solar heating systems were installed for two local households. Manufactured by Henry’s Pine Ridge company, Lakota Solar Enterprises, these systems lower a family’s heating bills by 20-30%, by providing heat for pennies per day, whenever the sun is shining.

The Wind River Reservation is the home of two separate tribes – the Northern Arapahoe and the Eastern Shoshone. Approximately 30 members of the tribes’ Housing Authorities attended Richard and Henry’s presentation about residential-scale renewable energy and its potential to bring green jobs to Native American communities. Tribal members then helped to install solar heating systems at a family home on each reservation.

Both Wind River tribes are exploring ways to incorporate renewable energy into their housing and job-training policies and plans. During their visit, Richard and Henry met with Patrick Goggles and Joanne Seesequasis, Executive Directors of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Housing Authority, and John Wadda, Director of the Eastern Shoshone’s Employment and Training Program, to discuss how TWP can further this process. If tribal leaders decide to implement solar heating on a wide scale, tribal members can learn to assemble and install the heating systems at our Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center on the Pine Ridge Reservation. These newly trained Solar Technicians could then be employed to economically install a large number of systems for Wind River families.

For more information please visit http://www.treeswaterpeople.org/tribal/tribal_intro.htm.

Interested in becoming involved with solar energy programs on tribal lands? Become a member of our Facebook Cause “Solar Energy for Lakota Families.”