CSJ partners with the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP), which was founded in 1973, and organizes and empowers small farmers in Haiti to improve their living conditions. Today, MPP has more than 60,000 members. MPP’s major goals include helping Haiti regain food security, sustainably managing natural resources, advocating for women’s rights, promoting alternative energies, and building people-centered rural communities. Please read the resource listed below by Katelyn Leader for a more detailed description of MPP.

Since our founding in 2012, UUCSJ has worked closely with one of UUSC’s key partners in Haiti, the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP). Over these three years CSJ brought 24 groups of volunteers to Haiti to learn about just recovery models after the 2010 earthquake, and to support projects initiated by local communities. These volunteers assisted our Haitian partners in building six sustainable eco-villages, which now house families from the refugee camps of Port-au-Prince. UUSC and many generous congregations and donors raised the funds to support this construction.

With the construction of the eco-villages successfully completed, UUCSJ & MPP have agreed to continue our immersion learning journeys with a new focus on the critical issues of food sovereignty and climate justice. Participants will learn first-hand about the impacts of climate change on the global south, the environmental damage caused by decades of colonial exploitation, and the leadership of rural peasant movements in advancing climate justice and global sustainability. In the words of Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, Executive Director of MPP, “Peasants are making a new road for humanity.”

We will work with members of MPP on their continuing “agroecology” projects such as building tire gardens, making natural insecticides, and helping in the seed nursery.