WHO WE ARE

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APAM stands for Assosyason Peyizan Anba MòN. It is a grassroots organization that was birthed after Hurricane Mathew devastaed Haiti. We are based in Brooklyn, NY, but our initiatives and members exist in the surrounding areas of the Southern Eastern part of Haiti in Jacmel.

 
APAM is a collective of ninety-two (102) families organized in the South East of Haiti around issues of education, farming, agriculture, biodiversity, health, and self-empowerment through a self-sustaining lens. We seek to empower, uplift, and ultimately to liberate the most marginalized members of the Anba MòN rural community—including and especially those who are, elderly, disabled, cash poor, women and children in the countryside. APAM focuses on community inter-dependence through member independence and accountability. We seek advanced training in agricultural and agroforestry; animal rearing, and building an equitable future, education and direct action. 

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Since its inception in 2016, APAM has served as a radical alternative to non-existing grassroots coalitions, organizations and government entities in the area. 

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Initially, conceived as a way to reflect back to Anba MòN farmers in the rural South East area of Jacmel what it is like to being helped by those from the diaspora who looks like them and of Haitian ancestry.  

APAM is still growing into an inter-dependent, multi-project, entity accountable to ourselves and our respective communities. APAM has Black Women’s Blueprint (BWB) as its fiscal sponsor that supports the multi-faceted initiatives that have been birthed during the quarantine and since its inception. APAM is not formally affiliated with any established organizations, although we frequently collaborate with various groups and individuals when our objectives align. 
 
WHAT WE DO:
 
Our methods are rooted in asking the farmers, the women and the youth in the community what are their needs and raising fund to support self-directed new projects. We believe without financial resources the incentives are low. This has requires challenging those with privilege to acknowledge the ways they can donate to uplift those who are marginalized, and those of Haitian ancestry to step up.
 
 
As APAM has grown, so too have our directives, strategies, and ideologies surrounding self-empowerment, social justice, self-sustainment and community organizing. Some of APAM’s first initiatives include: Agroforestry: goat-funding, agriculture & seedling; Youth Program: vocational education and summer camp. During, the pandemic in March of 2020, we’ve initiated a food drive that birthed the “Ti Maché”, a general store that stocks on basic food staples for the community. It was a nominal donation that was to alleviate hunger and provide provisions to those in the community that were hungry. This enterprise has succeeded in engaging the Anba MòN community to support and minimized an hour and a half long traveling to the epicenter, the city of Jacmel. We are now looking at microfinancing this project with elders in NYC from different organization who wants to support this enterprise for the women Anba Mon with a zero-interest loan.

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Second, we’ve launched through our youth program their own initiative- the chicken coop and as an exchanged, eight young adults started a summer camp for children 5yr to 13 years.  Third, we started the Virtual-Pal (VP)- where once a week the children Anba MòN are using WhatsApp to communicate with children in the USA. Fourth, we’ve piloted The Virtual Health Consultation (VHC). We’ve collaborated with Nurse Andrea Vassell in the USA, and a Herbologist, Dr. Berthony Jean Charles located in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti to consult virtually using WhatsApp.

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WHY WE DO IT:
 
The work being done by APAM is being done by just a handful of us in the USA and an entire village in Ayiti/Haïti. We believe changing the status quo of poverty and disenfranchised must first occur in our individual lives, our homes, families, schools, and neighborhoods. We employe self-reflection, self-empowerment, and community accountability, it is our intention to create an atmosphere that empowers and uplifts the most vulnerable among the farmers. We strive for and until the atmosphere of co-partnering exists, we will seek to prioritize the survival, dignity, and humanity of our marginalized sisters and brothers—both in the Anba MòN communities and beyond.
 
Ultimately, our message which is constructed from the Kawaida philosophy, and based on the first principle of the Nguzo Saba: 1) “Umoja” which means unity in Swahili, urges us to strive for unity in the family, in the community, in the nation, and in the race; and to extend it to the world. Thus, unity among us, recognize by us and for us.
 
We believe in sustainable growth for the farming community in Anba MòN and in the potential for the farmers to change under the right conditions. We believe existing systems of destitution need to be deconstructed and replaced with fundamental and all-encompassing alternatives. And we believe that strategy for social transformation is integral for the liberation of the people.

 
All of us at APAM look forward to learning, growing, and healing with our communities on our journey together ahead.
 

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