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- Founded:
- 2005
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Faces of the Cocoa FarmersCreated about a month ago
Wall PhotosCreated about a month ago
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Phoenix Fund George, is a leader-in-waiting/training in Liberia. For 15 years in a refugee camp, he was self-taught by selling his food rations to purchase books. He can easily debate an article from the Economist with anyone I've ever met.
Phoenix Fund A Phoenix Fund donation is an investment in an entrepreneur's idea. George, a Mercy Corps field manager is one of these people. His message he asked me to share: Don't send us development dollars without strings attached. Invest in the Liberian economy by teaching us to fish. Stop sending us fish.
Phoenix Fund Visited Sugar Beach outside Monrovia today. Great book to add to your bookclub/nightstand lists: The House at Sugar Beach, by Helene Cooper
Phoenix Fund At the Mamba Point hotel, life in Monrovia is surreal. The hotel sushi bar could be in NYC, it's so hip. But all around the hotel, extreme poverty is apparent.
Phoenix Fund
Read about the plight of the cocoa farmers, and how their lives are changing thanks to a small amount of capital invested in cocoa production. http://www.mercycorps.org/phoenixfund/su
www.mercycorps.org
In the last five years, 13 Phoenix Fund pilots have been completed. As is typical in investing in untested ideas, some of these pilots have had great success and some haven't.
Phoenix Fund True life heros are found here in Liberia: Emmitt and George, on-the-ground field program managers, have survived 14 years of conflict, yet emmerged to become leaders for positive change in their communities
Phoenix Fund As a Liberian would say to you Phoenix Fund donors: "Tank you plenty" for all you've done for the people of this country!
Phoenix Fund With over 85% of Liberians living on $2/day, it's difficult to swallow the cost of our hotel at $150/night.
Phoenix Fund almost 5 hours of driving today, all on majorly damaged roads. My arms are sore from holding onto the sat of the car, so that our heads don't bang into each other as we roll in and out of potholes.
Phoenix Fund The Phoenix Fund program leveraged a small grant from Realizing Rights to extend the program to an additional 25 farmers, access microcredit via forming legal coops, and introducing easy-to-make solar dryers at $750/each. Drying anything in Liberia is hard (I feel like I will never dry out!), and cocoa is ruined if too wet, but is harvested during peak rainy season.
Phoenix Fund Before Phoenix Fund, farmers harvested cocoa and made $500USD via middlemen. Now, thanks to market linkages via 6 exporters who visit the farm, prices are negotiated and farmers make $2500USD. And this is from existing, badly-planted cocoa trees. The new trees are 2 years away from maturity, so imagine how this will change these farmers' lives!
Phoenix Fund I sang and danced with cocoa farmers who are thankful for Phoenix Fund having changed their lives. They sing a song that brings a community together while as a community they help each farmer with their work on their farm. Pictures of the dancing to come when I return to the States (little bandwidth here)
Phoenix Fund Phoenix Fund donors, you have changed lives in Liberia. You have enabled subsistence farmer to learn how to grow a cash crop (cocoa) and be business women and men. Cocoa takes a long time to mature (4 years), but these farmers have hope for the first time that they can send their children to school.
