Philippe Lazaro
Philippe shares the stories of people living at the forefront of the climate crisis, who are working to transform their ecosystems and communities. He loves emphasizing the human experience, and keeping conversations about the environment centered on the communities most affected by it. Philippe has led storytelling trips to Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Tanzania, South Africa, Haiti, and a number of other countries. He has previously served in similar roles at Liberty in North Korea and Mobility International.
Philippe obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He furthered his studies by earning a Master of Arts in International Studies as well as a Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management at University of Oregon. Philippe is also an illustrator, podcaster, and digital artist. Outside of work, Philippe loves spending time with his wife and their three kids.
Haiti, Updates
The challenge of working in Haiti in 2022
Plant With Purpose works in some of the most difficult places in the world where people live. Our program supports resilience and progress in these challenging settings. As you can imagine, over the past couple years, life has gotten more difficult in many of these areas, largely due to the effects of the pandemic and […]
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About Our Work
When planting trees, be sure to tell the whole story
Don’t oversimplify the complex, and don’t over-complicate the simple. This simple charge is one that’s stuck with me throughout years of work in communications and storytelling focused on international development and climate solutions. Both of these errors have the potential to do harm. The world of international development is full of cases where complex problems […]
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All, Resources, Sustainability, Updates
How Black History paves the way for a more sustainable future
Being sustainability-minded typically comes with an orientation toward thinking about the future. After all, one of the ultimate goals of sustainability is to leave the planet better than one found it as a loving act toward future generations. So what role does history, specifically, Black history play in this? A significant role. In order to […]
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Climate Solutions, Meditations
Eco-discipleship: The act of studying and learning from creation
The Good News of Jesus is Good News for all of creation. One of the core ideas underlying the practice of ecological discipleship (eco discipleship), is drawing closer to God through study and engagement in the natural world. Musician Audrey Assad expresses, “I used to laugh at people who called nature a church. It mystified […]
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About Our Work, blog, Dominican Republic, DR Congo, Haiti, Sustainability, Tanzania, Thailand
The Value of Multilateral Partnerships
Plant With Purpose partners are autonomous but interdependent On the day that Plant With Purpose was established in 1984, two organizations were created as partners. Floresta International was founded in San Diego, California, and would later become known as Plant With Purpose. In the Dominican Republic, Floresta Incorporada was launched, where it continues working to […]
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All
What's the return for investing in ecosystem restoration?
What happens when you invest in ecosystem restoration? You may have heard a lot about ecosystem restoration lately. On World Environment Day (June 5, 2021), the United Nations launched the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global effort to help ecosystems from forests to oceans to farmlands recover their health and abundance. As a Christian organization, […]
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About Our Work
Connecting the Dots: Human Trafficking and Climate Change
Human trafficking continues to be one of the most pressing human rights violations around the world. Human trafficking is the illegal trade of men, women, and children, and the exploitation of their bodies and labor. In practically every country on earth, people are coerced or tricked into an industry of modern-day slavery. According to the […]
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Climate Solutions
What is Plant With Purpose doing to address climate change?
Empowering Rural Farmers to Reverse Climate Change Plant With Purpose works at the nexus of environmental degradation and poverty alleviation to empower rural farmers to reverse deforestation and to sequester carbon, reversing climate change. Our integrated approach addresses economic, environmental, and spiritual contributors to climate change and results in healed land and relationships as communities […]
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Sustainability
What you should know about your trash
Recycling trash has been hailed as a simple way to help the environment for a long, long time. It’s easy to imagine the bottles and cans in your blue bin being picked up and sent to a factory where they’re melted down and remade into new bottles, cans, or other goods, right? Unfortunately, not always. […]
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DR Congo
Four Year's Time: Why Samuel's forest shows us that change is possible
A lot can happen in four years. In the summer of 2016, a Plant With Purpose team went to visit a field site in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). At the time, the DRC was our newest partnering country and one of the most difficult places where we could work. Most families ate only […]
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Meditations, Sustainability
We're Resurrection People, After All!
The following is a letter from our Creative Director, Philippe Lazaro, on what happens when a global pandemic runs into Easter- a day where we celebrate resurrection. What a month it’s been. To echo a Tweet by Andy Crouch I read, “Honestly, I hadn’t planned on giving up this much for Lent.” There’s something oddly […]
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Meditations, Sustainability
Eco-Discipleship: How God calls us to learn from nature
We often overlook the way nature teaches us about God It’s not uncommon to hear people explain how a little time in nature helps people feel closer to God. But the idea of spending time in nature as a spiritual discipline can still be startling for many people. “I used to laugh at people who […]
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All, DR Congo, Meditations, Updates
Welcoming the Stranger: the Congolese community we could all learn from
Their past was riddled with conflict. Their future is about security and abundance. Nobody would consider Kakumba an easy place to live. Simply getting to it takes extensive climbing up steep hills and mountain sides, on trails that are often inaccessible due to rain… or worse. It wasn’t long ago that the conflicts that have […]
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All, Sustainability, Updates
3 Big Reasons to Protect Small Forests
We hear a lot about the importance of preserving the Earth’s major rainforests. What about forested areas that aren’t as vast? The Amazon. The Australian brush. The Indonesian palm rainforests. The Congo Rainforest and Basin. A lot of these major rainforests are familiar names to people concerned about the fight to protect the planet. And […]
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All, Resources, Sustainability
Sustainability challenges and advantages of each Enneagram type
Perhaps you’re familiar with the Enneagram. If not, then the rest of this article might not make much sense, and it might be worth getting familiar with the personality profile system that has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past few years. With origins that go back to the church centuries ago, the Enneagram has […]
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