Help Name the Newest Building at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center!

We need your help! Suggest a name for the newest building at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC) and win great prizes. RCREC is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Oglala Lakota, and is the headquarters of our Tribal Renewable Energy Program.

Some things to keep in mind:

• The primary purpose of this building is environmental education for Native Americans.
• The building will be used to host many renewable energy and energy efficiency trainings.
• The other known type of training will be sustainable agriculture (perhaps nutrition, cooking, and/ or food preservation classes).
• The building will also be available for rent to outside groups, so any number of other activities will take place there.

Contest Details: 

• We will take name submissions from May 16-23. 
• Submissions will be reviewed by Tribal Program staff and partners and a winner will be picked on Friday, May 31st. The winner will receive a very cool gift basket!
• The best names will be creative as well as respectful of the Lakota culture and people.

To submit your name suggestion please fill out the form below with “training annex name idea” in the subject line. Thanks for your help!

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Partner Update: Growing Trees of Hope in Haiti

By Leah Nevada, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods, or SOIL, is an organization that Trees, Water & People partners with to plant trees in Haiti. Here, Leah Nevada, provides an update of the 10,000 Trees for Haiti campaign that donors helped us fund at the end of 2012.

In February, SOIL worked with the Scouts of Haiti to plant 800 trees in the northern Haitian community of Madeline. Additionally, we worked with 35 members from seven local community organizations in Trou du Nord in the Nord’Est region of Haiti to plant almost 900 trees. We strive to ensure trees are not only planted, but also kept alive and healthy. At every planting event, SOIL provides training on how often the seedlings should be watered and how to ensure healthy tree growth.

Follow-up visits to the planted seedlings showed positive results, but also a few trees in need of more care. SOIL is now working with the Scouts on an action plan to make sure that all trees are well taken care of and SOIL agronomists have been meeting with tree growers to promote farmers’ cooperatives and farm-based businesses designed to improve rural incomes. Out of the remaining trees left at the SOIL nursery, jointly funded with Trees, Water & People, 1,500 seedlings, including many rare and native species, are being transplanted at our beautiful orchard and more tests are being done on the optimal amount of EcoSan compost (“humanure”) or urine (an important source of nitrogen!) to use. We are currently planning which types of seedlings to plant in order to reach the 10,000 tree goal.

Trees in Haiti are more than just a seed in the ground – they provide nutritious fruit for families and they prevent soil erosion and flooding. People work hard to keep these trees growing in the face of drought and grazing animals, and when the trees reach the age of bearing fruit, it’s cause for celebration!

Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities: Help Restore the High Park Fire Burn Area

The High Park Restoration Coalition

In response to the devastating High Park Fire, a group of Northern Colorado nonprofits, agencies, individuals, and local businesses joined forces in July 2012 to form the High Park Restoration Coalition. We are combining resources to restore and stabilize high priority ecological areas affected by the High Park and Hewlett Gulch fires.

The goals of the High Park Restoration Coalition focus on the ecological restoration of public and private lands burned by these events. We will do this through public education and outreach as well as projects that stabilize soil to protect watersheds, reseed and reforest sensitive areas, restoring aquatic ecosystems, and rehabilitating trails and other recreation areas. By working in cooperation with local agencies, we can increase the positive impact that we can collectively have on the burned area and its recovery.

Please join us by becoming a volunteer with the Coalition and help restore our precious lands!

Upcoming Volunteer Events:

High Park Post-Fire Restoration IV – Friday May 10, 2013
High Park Post-Fire Restoration V – Saturday May 11, 2013
High Park Post-Fire Staging and Restoration VI – Wednesday May 15, 2013
High Park Post-Fire Restoration VII – Saturday May 18, 2013
High Park Post-Fire Restoration VIII – Saturday June 1, 2013
High Park Post-Staging VIII – Thursday June 20, 2013
High Park Post-Fire Restoration IX – Saturday June 22, 2013

Photo of the Week: Happy Mother’s Day!

We believe that every mother in the world deserves access to clean cookstoves that reduce deadly indoor air pollution in the home and decrease deforestation in the local community.

On this Mother’s Day, we hope for healthy homes and healthy families through increased access to cookstoves in the developing world.  Cooking shouldn’t kill!

To learn more please visit www.treeswaterpeople.org 

Notes from the Field: Solar PV Training Brings More Renewable Energy to Pine Ridge

by Claire Burnett, National Program Assistant

Our new solar electric array at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center is now installed! Trainees from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe recently joined local Lakota trainees for three days of in-class instruction at our Solar Electric Training, followed by a hands-on installation, learning the ins and outs of solar electric design and installation.

Jeff Tobe with Solar Energy International (SEI) joined us for a second time as a guest instructor, and we received generous equipment donations from SEI, Advanced Energy, and Bella Energy. The install is an addition to our existing solar array, and a precursor to a larger array that will be installed on our new Red Cloud Training Annex early  this summer.

In addition, the training follows a historical coal mine protest on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation that we attended with our fellow trainees and friends, and we had a film crew on site for a documentary focusing on clean sources of energy on tribal lands.

Thank you to everyone who was involved in this training – what a success!

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Photo of the Week: Plant Trees, Save Lives in Haiti

 

About this photo

In Haiti, it is estimated that only 2% of the natural forest cover remains. Rampant deforestation has caused extreme environmental degradation, human health problems, and economic turmoil.

In partnership with Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL), we are working to reforest areas of northern Haiti. Our partners at SOIL work with local communities to plant trees that not only improve soil and watershed health, but also provide nutritious food and extra income for families – a win-win for people and the planet!

In this photo, local school children are helping to plant seedlings from the SOIL nursery near Labadee, Haiti. The children learn about natural resource conservation while helping to improve the land with tree planting.

To support reforestation projects please visit www.treeswaterpeople.org/plant_trees

(Photo provided by SOIL)

Sustainable Enterprise Drives MBA Students from Colorado State University

Solar lights are illuminating the homes of families in rural areas of Latin America.

Passion for a business venture that meets the triple bottom-line – people, planet, and profit – is what really drives a team of students at the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA Program at Colorado State University. Working with Trees, Water & People, the group of four students are helping to develop Luciérnaga, a social enterprise that commercially distributes solar lighting products through networks of community-based organizations (CBOs) and agricultural cooperatives in Honduras.

Luciérnaga (“firefly” in Spanish) has a strong sustainable mission: “use an extensive network of agricultural cooperatives to provide 2.2 million Honduran families without electricity access to affordable, efficient and environmentally friendly solar lights that can be used for educational, household, and economic gains.”

This summer, the GSSE team will be traveling to Honduras to conduct in-depth research on Luciérnaga’s business operations such as the supply chain distribution, cooperative functionality, and customer service. They will use the information learned in the field to close Luciérnaga’s business gaps and increase scalability in Honduras and throughout other countries in Central America.

The diverse GSSE team, composed of Alicia Prusinksi, Magaly Mori, Kevin Rodriguez, and Trang Tran (pictured below from left to right), is currently fundraising for their trip by participating in a business competition, pitching to social and sustainable businesses, and crowdfunding.

Check out their website, meet their team, and consider funding their project. Remember that with one good deed YOU can make a change in the world!