Our Model of Partnership

We partner with an organized, grassroots group in Pestel, Haiti, called KPA, or Christians Work Together (Kretyen Pwogré Ansanm in Creole).

Our partnership model is to honor the Haitians we work with. The group of five committed KPA leaders gather another 40 community leaders from around the Pestel area and work hard and smartly to improve education and food security in their towns. They try to have a mixture of one young person, one older person, and at least one male and one female from each town to establish a diversity of perspectives. The group represents more than 200 villages in the Pestel region, representing some 40,000 people.

The five Haitian members of KPA’s service team are

Fanfan Belizaire

Phenicq Bien-Aime

Gerald Victorin

Saintané Yacinthe

Loubert Zepphir

Our model, in brief, is this: we listen to KPA, we pray to God, and we donate as wisely as we can.

Thriving Villages International's focus is on food security and education, because that's what KPA determined the people need most. Consequently, we send as many students to university as funds allow (four in 2020). We fund goats (58 in 2020) because they serve as part bank account and part food source. Goats can produce three kids a year, enhancing a family's nutrition and wealth. We raise money for seeds (99 families received high-nutritional peanuts and other seeds in 2020). We support St. Rose elementary school in Ferrier, which expanded from 20 to 85 students in a few years. That was beyond capacity, but the principal, KPA leader Gerald Victorin, didn't want to deprive any student of the gift of an education.

Small numbers can make a great impact in Pestel, an impoverished region in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Here, even a small donation makes a large difference. 

Here’s a glimpse of the dedication of the Haitians we work with. The five KPA leaders donated half of their salaries for the first quarter of 2020 – during the worst of the food crisis – to help feed their starving neighbors, an act that still humbles me.

One experience helps explain why we help Pestel. During a visit to Pestel in 2011, after a day of seeing water supply tinged with dirt and seeing some children showing clear signs of malnutrition, Dr. Ben Fredrick, TVI’s founder, told me, “I hate it when things happen to children. I just hate it. I don’t know God’s will in everything, but I know Pestel should have clean water. I know the children should have food. These are no-brainers.”

All that to say, your donation will go directly to help save and improve the lives of some of the poorest people on earth by way of dedicated volunteers and workers.

Thank you.

Jim Bishop, President

Thriving Villages International

Photo, from L to R: Fanfan, Loubert, Gerald, Phenicq, Saintané