I had the pleasure to be in Mr. Simon Pfister’s Business Administration class at the University of St Gallen during my first year. He has an open personality and is full of interesting stories about life, business and education. Right after our Semester break he told us about his recent trip to Ethiopia, curious as I am, I asked him about his intention to go to Ethiopia. It turned out that his family runs a Foundation called Green Ethiopia.
What Green Ethiopia is about
Its intention is to improve the nutrition and living situation of people in Ethiopia for sustainable fight of poverty through afforestation and water harvesting, in close collaboration with farmer and women associations. It wants to fight erosion and its dramatic consequences through afforestation, and supporting the Ethiopian agriculture and forestry for re-gaining food security.
This is Green Ethiopia‘s main objective. But it is not about delivering aid, instead it is about support for self-development, starting with afforestation and ending with people being empowered to sustainably improve their living situation themselves.
Focal point is the cycle: Trees – Forests – Water – Nutrition – Life
“The objects of the foundation shall be without any profit-making or self-help motive, but shall be:
- to support Ethiopian farming and forestry by developing sustainable environmental agriculture and forestry to conserve and restore soil fertility and therefore the long-term cultivation of available land resources.
- to provide advice and support to Ethiopian farmers with regard to sustainable production, appropriate storage and marketing of essential home-grown foodstuffs to ensure long-term basic nutrition in Ethiopia.”
Fighting erosion means:
- reforestation through planting trees of indigenous species
- protect the reforestation are from cattle and wild animals
- construction of simple water harvesting (ponds)
- construction of simple dams
- River-Diversion (redirection for irrigation)
Support for private farmers:
- providing tree seedlings and seeds
- donating material and utilities
- supporting water harvesting retention and storage
- advising vegetable and fruit plantation
- supporting extraction and supply of seeds
- counseling ecological production
Since I personally know Mr. Pfister, I can honestly say that what he is doing has a solid background and is well thought through. Not only is he one of the nicest teachers I had during my study phase, but also his enthusiasm and dedication towards helping others greatly inspires me. Through my project to cycle down to South Africa I will gain lots of attention. I want to use this attention to make people aware of helping others in need.
If possible, please donate through a bank Transfer. Since Paypal charges 2% per donation, money is lost…
Bank Transfer
Name: Lukas Caesar Steiner
Iban: CH73 0022 3223 3384 23M3 H
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Lukas Steiner 