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News
& Links > Ashmore
Haitian Organization Led
by RMCUCC member
By Matt Kaiser
Special to the RMCUCC News
Haitian children huddle around Karen Ashmore
as she speaks to them in Haitian Creole and shows them the digital
photograph she just snapped
of their smiling faces. Ashmore will take these children’s pictures
and the stories of their Haitian communities back to UCC congregations
in the U.S. who helped support them.
Ashmore, a member of United Church of Broomfield, is the Executive Director
of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a non-profit organization that provides financial
resources, training, and technical assistance to peasant-led community
organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the
Haitian people.
A passion for Haiti came to Ashmore when she and her husband, Scott Ross,
a life-long UCC member adopted two sisters from the Western Hemisphere’s
poorest country.
"
When we adopted our first daughter in 2001 my husband and I were overwhelmed
by the intense poverty in Haiti and wanted to do something to help families
become sustainable,” She said. “It is a worn out cliché but
we very much believe in the quote ‘Give a man a fish and he has
a meal for a day. Teach a man to fish and he has food for a lifetime’.
We researched different groups working in Haiti and the Lambi Fund of
Haiti was head and shoulders above the rest.
“ We became donors. A year or so later I did some consulting for the organization.
Then a year after that the executive director resigned. Since I have
a strong non-profit background, I applied for the job and have been the
Executive Director since 2004.”
Lambi Fund takes a “bottom up” approach in its development
work in Haiti, listening to the needs of Haitian peasant organizations
and supporting peasant-led solutions through training and funding. Since
its inception in 1994 Lambi Fund has impacted over a million Haitians
and partnered on 150 peasant led projects ranging from pig and goat breeding
enterprises to micro credit cooperatives to organic community farms.
The UCC has been integral in supporting the Lambi Fund’s work in
Haiti. In 2004 Ashmore held a poverty meal and presentation for Compassion
Sunday at her home congregation, United Church of Broomfield.
“
Karen made a typical Haitian meal of rice and beans and served it to
the church members and then made a presentation on Lambi Fund,” said
Broomfield Pastor Greg Garland, “As a result our congregation’s
ongoing relationship with the Lambi Fund began as members took up a collection
for Lambi Fund. After that it was adopted as the international project
of the Mission Committee and the kids in the Sunday School classes put
coins in the Pennies for Pigs piggy bank. Typically they raise enough
money to buy two pigs.”
Pigs are like savings accounts for Haitian families. They can sell a
fattened pig at the market and use the proceeds to send children to school
and provide for the family, who often live on less than a dollar a day.
Lambi Fund recently supplied 23 pigs to a community organization near
the village of Kasis. The sows have already given birth to 25 piglets
and an additional 14 pigs are pregnant. It does not take much to start
a self-sustaining enterprise in Haiti.
Members of the group running the pig enterprise expressed praise for
Lambi Fund when Ashmore visited Haiti recently.
“
Pigs allow us to live- we can take care of kids and all of our needs,” said
one member.
Deforestation has also been a major problem in Haiti and Ashmore has
been successful in developing a collaboration with the Greenbelt Movement,
led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The two struck up a
friendship at an sentimental meeting in New York and have been a planning
a partnership for the past two years.
In the fall, Greenbelt workers will go to Haiti and visit the small reforestation
projects that Lambi Fund supports.
“
Then we will sit down and think about ways we can structure a big nationwide
rollout in Haiti,” said Ashmore. “We will be able to draw
on their thirty years of training and expertise.
We plan to plant one million trees in Haiti, which should go along way
to making an impact on global warming.”
In addition to Colorado churches, several UCC churches in NJ, FL, and
PA are participating in projects to support the Lambi Fund.
It would be hard to exaggerate the impact these churches are having on
families living in rural Haiti. Something as simple as a pig can have
far reaching effects -- from providing more protein in children’s
diets to funds for health care or tuition. More importantly, it allows
the dignity and self-determination that comes from being self-sufficient.
There is good news to report from Haiti thanks to Lambi Fund’s
efforts to empower the Haitian people with the help of UCC. Through the
Lambi Fund, UCC is having an impact in Haiti, and as Pastor Garland says, “The
efforts of the Lambi Fund to improve the lives of the people of Haiti
give all of us in our congregation the hope that we all can be part of
a solution.”
If your church or Sunday School class is interested
in partnering with Ashmore and the Lambi Fund, contact Ashmore at info@lambifund.org
or call her at 303-465-5053. Visit the website at www.lambifund.org
for more information.
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