From 4/16/2019 interview with Steve Scott - Director of Haitian Ministry - Raise The Roof - a ministry that helps the poor improve their livelihoods by helping themselves.

On the impact of just one Basic Utility Vehicle…


In Haiti, 3 tenths of one percent of the population, that’s 3 people out of one thousand own a vehicle. So...to have a vehicle available is HUGE! And to have it be an agricultural vehicle - even better. In our area, we have farmers on both sides of the highway. There are mountains six miles in one direction and six miles in the other. The road goes through the middle and nobody farms more than an acre in the whole region!! These are subsistence farmers and our goal is to triple the income of 100 small acreage farmers. With each farmer representing five to seven people, we are moving 500 - 700 people from abject poverty to Haitian middle class - which means that they will eat two meals every day (not just at harvest time), they will enroll and keep their kids in school, and they will begin to upgrade their home to concrete (which right now they are thatch, woven with mud caked on and a dash of paint). So they’ll move to concrete homes which are much more stable for them.  Lastly, they will have the financial resources to be able to handle one medical crisis per year.

1 BUV Means  “We are moving 500 - 700 people from abject poverty to Haitian middle class.”

That is huge for families. Any one of those things would be a blessing. All of them are huge. So we’re very excited about figuring out how to do that with the BUV.


And we’re excited that they are farmers, and they love being farmers. But the drought has been really, really hard on them for a long time. But if we can work with them at doing what they love to do, and help them to help themselves improve their station - they’re the ones doing it - it’s not us doing it for them, but we’re doing it with them - it’s just as simple as providing some of these resources. So if they have availability at the time that we want to do seed, we’ll buy bulk seed and we’ll be able to distribute that and they’ll be able to save 20-30% on their seed prices by us buying in bulk and then bringing the seed to them.

The BUV will allow them to transport their crops to market and not have to pay exorbitant costs - or to have the market goods come to them and then send their crops back to market with the BUV??. To to have the BUV as a transport vehicle for a Cooperative of Haitian farmers is going to be a very huge thing.

We’re going to be a resource center in the middle of all of our neighbors.  Serving and loving them well opens the door for the gospel.

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