One Village Planet--Women's Development Initiative is a global-thinking, village-acting, environmental, educational, and humanitarian organization focused on sustainable development projects for rural women in Haiti and Ghana. Our approach is centered on a belief that solutions to the problems of access must be self-sustaining if they are going to succeed. Community support and involvement are integral parts of our vision.
Our Work in Ghana
OVP-WDI is dedicated to empowering women in the Northern Region of Ghana, involved in the shea sector as both harvesters and processors.
We will literally save lives by providing protective-wear for harvesters, who are extremely vulnerable to fatal snakebites. We will build collective silos in the villages for the women to store their harvests, so they will be able to sell year-round, rather than during the harvest months only.
For Processors in town, we will provide means by which they may purchase their raw materials directly from the villages, rather than being dependent on a mediating (male) liaison.
These steps will encourage self-regulated fair-trade and a direct line of communication between the two groups of women, who currently have little or no contact, fostering solidarity in their common pursuit of sustainable economic development.
OVP-WDI's goal is to help these women to transform themselves into a self-sufficient collective by providing infrastructure, support, and education in business practices, and to pave wider avenues for the women of Ghana: real leverage in the multi-million dollar shea butter industry and a socio-economic model that may be extended throughout a disenfranchised population of 600,000 women.
Our Work in Haiti
Nowhere in this hemisphere are the environment and the state of human dignity more at risk than in Haiti. Potable water availability is among the lowest in the world and original forests are 99% eliminated.
Although OVP-WDI was officially established as a 501(c)(3) in April of 2009, our founder has been pursuing women-focused projects in Haiti through our sister organization One Village Planet for the last four years (and has served as the organization's Treasurer since its inception in 1999). During this time she helped to build a local women's resource center in Derac, Northeast Department, which offers basic skills training and health education.
In February of 2010 OVP and OVP-WDI officially partnered to dig two wells in Derac. The first, larger well was dug to provide potable water for this community of 5000 whose former well was contaminated with brackish water, leaving them without water for more than two years. The second, smaller well is dedicated to the aforementioned local women's center and its activities, including the HER (Haitian Economic Response) Farming project.
