economic development
All, Meditations
What does it take to be thankful?
Imagine what gratitude looks like at its most intense level There’s no real way to measure who the most grateful person in the world must be, but can you imagine what life must look like for that person? A deep appreciation for practically everything and an overflow of joy towards life. It’s probably easy to […]
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All, Mexico
The Preteen President
Empowerment groups help both people and the planet Wherever Plant With Purpose works, participants join empowerment groups. These groups support environmental restoration efforts with economic development through loans and savings. As community members save their extra income in shares and lend money to each other to generate further income, poverty declines. From the group president, […]
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All, Living Sustainably, Meditations
Protecting God’s Creation
What motivates Christians to care about climate? This is a question many have asked, from both within and outside the faith. While people in general may have all kinds of reasons for concern- from uncertainty towards the future to concern for the poor, how this is influenced by people’s spiritual beliefs stirs up a lot […]
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All, Climate Solutions, Environmental Restoration, Our Response
Time to tell ourselves a new story about the environment
Our survival depends on a new story When it comes to the environment, it appears more and more obvious that we need new ways of doing familiar things. The behaviors and habits that have gotten us to where we are will not sustain us for where we want to be. Making things different, however doesn’t […]
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All, Meditations, Updates
Poverty's Last Frontier
We’ve made significant amounts of progress against poverty in recent times When we look at things going wrong in the world, things like poverty and injustice, we must remember that it doesn’t have to be this way. God did not create the world intending for poverty and human suffering, and we’re called to be a […]
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All, Tanzania
The Gold Mine of Local Ingenuity
What happens when the line gets blurry between sustainability and marketing? Some of our planet’s most needed solutions are ready to be unearthed. They aren’t waiting to be discovered in the labs of our top research institutions. They aren’t waiting for tech entrepreneurs to figure things out. They’re in the minds of the people most […]
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All, Living Sustainably
Worthwhile questions to ask about the things around us
Part of living a more sustainable lifestyle includes rethinking our relationship with the physical world. Sometimes that means reconsidering the importance of the forests in Ethiopia, or the trees in our own neighborhood. Other times, it means reconsidering the physical objects in front of us- our drinkware, the clothes on our back, or the electronics […]
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All, Updates
Global Changes Show Us What is Possible
It can be easy to only notice the bad things going on in the world, especially when it comes to environmental issues. While it’s important to stay concerned and connected to the planet’s challenges, it’s equally important to stay tuned in to the stories of hope. These stories remind us possible when our relationships with […]
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All, Haiti
Food on the Table: The Story of Messoyel
Haiti has faced challenges year after year. Haiti is no stranger to the hopelessness that comes from generations of government changes and promises, with little to show for it. Even when big changes are made to better the country, small farmers like Messoyel often are the last people to be affected or rewarded. Messoyel is […]
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All, Our Response
How to prioritize listening to locals
One extremely high value at Plant With Purpose is the empowerment of locals. We are simply partners. Doing so requires a spirit of collaboration that goes against many norms in the world of international charity. Here are a few of the shifts we seek to further local empowerment. We see locals as drivers of their […]
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All, Environmental Restoration, Tanzania
Farmer Field Schools: The Sack Garden
At Plant With Purpose, we aim to equip rural farmers with sustainable agriculture skills. These skills help them become resilient against hunger and environmental problems. One challenge in Tanzania is the lack of space for farming activities on many people’s property. A solution is the creation of sack gardens. Here’s how these gardens in large […]
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All, Burundi
Knowledge Empowers
Empowerment often takes the form of learning When it comes to community development, you can give away food. You can give clothing. You can give scholarships, or water, or trees. These are all things that are all deeply needed in many parts of the world, and there are many times when giving directly to address […]
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All, Meditations, Updates
Right Now, Somewhere On Earth
Attention to our environmental condition often fades in and out. Things like news coverage or public concern may come and go, which sometimes makes it easy to forget that our ecological story is constantly unfolding. Here are some things that are happening right now. Families are feeling the burden of environmental degradation When you hear […]
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All, Sustainability
Is This Sustainable or Is This Just Marketing?
What happens when the line gets blurry between sustainability and marketing? Over the past decade, clothing giant H&M has received much criticism for the company’s environmental impact and the working conditions of its manufacturers. After the fatal collapse of a factory in Bangladesh killed 1138 workers in 2013, H&M became the first and largest brand […]
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All, Living Sustainably
When Nations Get Busy Planting Trees
For over 30 years, Plant With Purpose has advocated for planting trees as a simple but powerful response to the environmental challenges that our planet faces. Swiss researcher Tom Crowther speaks about planting trees urgently. As far as climate solutions go, “it is available now,” he says. “It is the cheapest one possible and every […]
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