FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, March 14, 2025 – Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada has received a grant of $387,895 from Quebec’s Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie under the component of Québec sans frontières (QSF, Quebec Without Borders) program that supports one-off projects (see ministry’s press release in French). We are one of four international cooperation organizations (ICOs) to have received a total of $1.5 million in funding under the program.
QSF is an international solidarity program that responds to needs identified by the local partners of Quebec-based ICOs and the communities they serve. It thus gives a voice to organizations and peoples, especially women and youths, in target countries.
As longtime QSF partners of the Government of Quebec, we are honoured to renew our participation in the program. Adding $300,000 from our own funds to the grant, we are supporting Dlo, sous lavi a (Water, source of life, in Creole), a women’s peasant farming project adapted to drought conditions in Haiti. The project, which has total budget of $687,895, will run from February 2025 to January 2028.
In the face of challenges posed by climate change, food insecurity and gender inequality, the project aims to reduce the targeted women’s vulnerability to recurrent droughts by strengthening local agriculture, better adapting it to Haitian women producers’ needs, and encouraging local communities to hold it in higher esteem. The project will also provide agricultural equipment and technical training and highlight issues specific to rural women through awareness-raising activities. It will reach 888 people directly (588 women and 300 men) and 3,750 indirectly in Haiti.
Among our long-trusted partners who will implement the project in eight communities across two departments of Haiti is the Institut de recherche et d’appui technique en aménagement du milieu (IRATAM). It will provide its expertise in peasant agriculture, agroforestry and supporting cooperatives.
IRATAM’s director, Émile Eyma, said, “The Dlo, Sous Lavi a project will reinforce the efforts of women farmers, who play a key role in food production in Haiti, by enabling them to adapt their farming practices to the droughts caused by climate change. Foot-powered irrigation pumps will help increase the production of fruit, vegetables and tubers.”
The global citizenship education component of the project will raise awareness among and mobilize Quebeckers, including young people, through two flagship activities: a solidarity visit to Quebec by IRATAM representatives, and the a photo essay depicting the realities of the lives of the peasant women and men in the project’s intervention zones.
Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada is grateful to the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie for its vital financial support for this project and for its commitment to Haiti.
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About Development and Peace – Caritas Canada
Development and Peace – Caritas Canada is the official international solidarity organization of the Catholic Church in Canada. It works in partnership with local organizations in more than 30 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East to increase justice in the world and act in solidarity with people living in vulnerable situations.
For further information, please contact:
Minaz Kerawala
Communications and Public Relations Advisor
514 257-8710 poste 326
mkerawala@devp.org
