Environmental Stewardship
DONATE NOWA Critical Part of a Healthy Community
GHNI is committed to the wellbeing of all systems on which our communities depend and of which they are a part – social, economic, political, personal, and environmental. Complex challenges require holistic solutions. That’s TCD.
Around the world, TCD communities are taking action! Take a look at some of the projects highlighted here that show how local people are contributing to a more sustainable future.
Ongoing Community Projects
Ethiopia
Drought Resilient Farming
Natural vegetable farming brings a variety of benefits
Ethiopia – Dida Hara Village
Drought Resilient Farming
Natural vegetable farming brings a variety of benefits
Environmental Impacts: After three years of drought, farmers turned to vegetable gardening over cattle herding. Natural farming methods were adopted including seed-saving and using chemical-free fertilizers. Vegetation was planted to prevent erosion. The group hopes to form an environmental club at the local school to plant edible greens as well as trees. The land has gone from barren to green and flourishing.
Social Impacts: The long drought caused all of the community’s cattle to die, destroying the local economy. When the locals turned to vegetable farming, they not only improved their food security, but produced a surplus which could be sold or traded, and reduced the need to take the long, six-mile journey previously required to buy vegetables at the market. Additionally, they have formed an association that helps take their produce to market for them now. In future expansion, the team hopes to help the local school plant healthy greens for the children to eat. A new teammate was also hired to take these lessons to more communities.
DONATE NOW
- $35 for each additional family
- $1,750 expands project for 50 new families
GHNI’s efforts towards a healthy planet while creating new job opportunities
Global Hope Network International has partnered with the “RES4CITY” initiative to contribute to the environment by developing renewable energy technologies. This partnership aims to develop skilled professionals in the renewable energy field, thereby creating 38 million green jobs by 2030, and 43 million jobs by 2050. This partnership will hope to solve multiple problems like poverty, unemployment, depleting energy sources and much more to create a healthy tomorrow.
Our Journey with Environmental Stewardship
When a village elder in Southeast Asia invited a GHNI team to his community, he cautioned them that the road was dangerous. Local people clearcut the forest around their homes and now strong winds blow their roofs off during heavy storms. Their monocropping practices require heavy use of fertilizers, much of which eventually runs into the local stream. Farmers complain about chemical burns on their skin from the pesticides they spray; some won’t even eat their own produce.
After the harvest season, most farmers across the region burn the crop residue – a practice that pollutes the air so much that for two months each year it is among the worst in the world. Respiratory issues spike across the region. Wildfires frequently ignite if the burning gets out of control.
The locals say the rainy season is not as predictable or consistent as it used to be. When the rains finally come, the soil has nothing to hold it together so landslides are common. An impassable road means that children cannot get to school, workers cannot deliver their goods to the market, and the sick and injured cannot receive the medical care they need.
Countless versions of this scene are repeated across the world with increasing frequency and intensity. Poor understanding and treatment of the natural environment inevitably leads to negative repercussions – especially for the people who live most closely to it.
We all need clean water, clean air, and healthy soil. We are responsible to wisely steward the resources given to us knowing that we depend on them for our physical life. When nature thrives, humans thrive.
Highlights of Completed Projects
Poplar Tree Farm
Afghanistan
Solar Cookers
Afghanistan
Trash Cleanup
Myanmar
Hydroelectricity
Tajikistan
Afghanistan
Poplar Tree Farm
This poplar tree farm allows women to more safely collect firewood as they previously had to trek to remote areas where they were vulnerable to assault. The trees also help prevent erosion and store carbon. Additionally, the trees provide community members with another source of income as cuttings can be sold or even loaned out to help others start their own poplar grove as well. Once the trees are old enough, the same amount of cuttings originally provided are returned to the TCD program in order to ensure sustainability and to offer additional opportunities to others.
Afghanistan
Solar Cookers
Making the lives of women easier, these solar cookers provide an alternative to cooking using only firewood - a method of cooking that exacerbates deforestation and causes smoke inhalation primarily by women and children. With the abundance of sunlight in Afghanistan, these solar cookers quickly and cleanly boil water and heat food. Women no longer have to spend time collecting firewood, exposing themselves to attack, but can use that time pursuing other ventures. The solar cookers were not given out for free but instead GHNI subsidized the cost by 50% - putting them within reach of local budgets while also promoting buy-in and a sense of ownership. A total of 300 solar cookers were sold - improving both physical and environmental health.
Myanmar
Trash Cleanup
Some of the first projects conducted in TCD communities in Myanmar were community trash cleanups. They gathered the community together to collect trash to keep the environment clean, putting bins and signs all around the public spaces reminding people to take care of their natural environments. One community in Myanmar even received an award for having one of the cleanest communities in their region.
Tajikistan
Hydroelectricity
Miniature hydroelectric generators (sometimes called “run-of-river hydro" because it does not require damming the water) are excellent, affordable means of providing sustainable electricity to a community. In one village in Tajikistan, they had an old mini-hydro generator but it was broken - leaving them without electricity for more than 25 years. During the TCD process, the community identified repairing the generator as a priority and got to work. They raised about $500 locally which GHNI then matched, and after the repairs the community was producing its own clean energy and had electricity for the first time in a generation!
As soon as the generator was producing electricity, the community saw the transformational development potential it held with all five areas of TCD being positively impacted. The community even set up a committee to maintain the mini-hydro system for years to come. The snow in the area is often seen as a liability, but in this case its runoff provided the power needed to solve a local challenge - local resources leading to local solutions!
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