Building on interest expressed in Orlando,  David Stillman and Daniel Faustin of SImACT met in Washington on March 14-15 with Lord Kevin Lumb, President of Global Investment Summits, for a series of meetings to plan the Haiti Reconstruction and Sustainability Summit, scheduled for mid-September.  This included meetings with prominent Haitian-Americans and at the Inter-American Development Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and UN Foundation (Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves).  Foundation board member Carol Dabbs joined a lunch meeting with the president of the Haiti Renewal Alliance and another Haitian-American who owns land in Haiti.

A next step will be meetings in Haiti, planned for mid-April.   

Over a hundred members of the international aid and development community gathered in Orlando, Florida for the inaugural Disaster Response & Recovery Summit, which took place at the Caribe Royale Hotel & Convention Center on 1-2 March 2011.   The summit was organized to bring key decision makers in the aid & development community together with government policy-makers and partnering contractors looking to assist in the aftermath of disasters around the globe.

About one-third of the speakers dealt with Haiti.  David Stillman’s presentation consisted of a photo essay as well as a speech on “Lives, Livelihoods and Environment in Haiti.”  To request a  copy of the speech, email: ppafoundation@gmail.com

Dr. David Stillman, Lord Kevin Lumb

The summit covered key issues during the morning presentations and enabled delegates to meet with UN, business and NGO officials in the afternoons.   Twenty roundtables were set up for this purpose, with over 300 meetings taking place over the two days.

Proceedings were opened by Lord Kevin Lumb, Chairman of Global Development Summits. 

Dr. David Stillman represented the Humpty Dumpty Institute as keynote speaker at Sustainability Dialogue Day at Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Arizona.  The ten colleges have an enrollment of over 260,000 students.    Chancellor Rufus Glasper opened the event, which comprised about 100 faculty and senior staff.  

Thomas Williams, V. Chancellor Maria Harper-Marinick, Pushpa Ramakrishna, Chancellor Rufus Glasper, David Stillman, Eric Leshinskie, Robert Morales

Stillman spoke on “International Perspectives on Sustainability” and led a workshop on “International Resources for Sustainable Development.”    Chancellor Glasper is a signatory to the American Colleges and Universities Presidents’ Climate Commitment.  

Handouts will be available on the PPAF website or by request to ppafoundation@gmail.com

On March 1-2 David Stillman will speak in Orlando, Florida at the Disaster Response and Recovery Summit, organized by Global Investment Summits, Ltd.  This will bring key decision makers in the aid and development community together with government policy-makers and partnering contractors looking to assist in the aftermath of disasters around the globe. 

 Morning sessions will introduce the presenters, while afternoon sessions will devoted to private consultations between attendees and participants to discuss key issues affecting disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

Stillman will participate in the panel on Aid and Relief.  His topic is “Lives, Livelihoods and the Environment in Post-Earthquake Haiti.”  Other panelists represent THW – the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (Germany), World Cares Center and Mercy Corps. 

The Summit will include panels on “Preparedness, Prediction and Assessment,” “Disaster Response,” “Public-Private Cooperation.” “Communications, Logistics & Supply Chain Management,” and “Reconstruction and Recovery.”     

In March 2010 Stillman spoke at a similar meeting, in Miami, “Haiti: Resources for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance Summit.”   

Leslie Black Cordes, Acting Director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, which is housed in the UN Foundation, took part in a panel on energy and climate change at the United Nations Association of the USA Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference / Members Day at the UN.  This day-long conference brought some 550 participants to hear presentations on issues of great importance to the U.S., the UN and globally. 

Cordes emphasized the impact of dirty, inefficient cookstoves and open fires on health and environment, as half the world’s population continues to depend on wood and other biomass for cooking.  She pointed out that exposure to such smoke kills almost two million young children and women a year and sickens millions more.  Cookstove smoke is one of the top five worst overall health risk factors in the developing world.  Reliance on wood and charcoal is a major contributor to deforestation. 

Cordes described the recent establishment of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, its program focus and the technical working groups that are being established.  She declared that the Alliance hopes to promote adoption of 100 million clean, efficient cookstoves in ten years, which would be approximately 20% of the globally affected population.  She invited expanded government, private sector, philanthropic, academic, NGO and other institutions to engage in partnership opportunities.  For more information, see http://cleancookstoves.org  and http://www.flickr.com/photos/ppaf  For information on the UNA-USA Conference, see: http://unasouthernny.wordpress.com

The Public-Private Alliance Foundation organized meetings from January 13 through 17 for representatives of Blume Distillation, LLC, which is planning to manufacture community-level distilleries for alcohol production that fuel clean cookstoves, motorbikes, etc.  The distilleries will accept sugar cane and a variety of other feedstocks and can receive support through distance monitoring.  The aim is to encourage agribusiness both in feedstock production and in co-products of the distillation process which can enrich the soil and support secondary markets.

Meetings were held with several potential private investors, with Ambassadors to the UN from Madagascar and Haiti, and with UN officials.  On the 15^th SImACT, a Haitian-American investment group, organized a session with more than 50 participants at their Brooklyn headquarters for discussions on both the clean cookstoves and the distilleries. 

On January 14, Blume Distillation represented and investors joined Stillman at the Conference for Teaching About the UN.  Blume staffed a display table at the conference along with Project Gaia.  Stillman addressed the conference on the topic “Fighting the Silent Killer in the Kitchen: Achieving the MDGs.”

Photos are available on the Foundation’s Flickr account.

January 14 – David Stillman will speak at the CTAUN (Committee for Teaching About the United Nations) annual conference for educators on global issues, at the United Nations headquarters, which attracts approximately 500 participants each year.   This year’s topic is the Millennium Development Goals.   Stillman will speak on the work of the Public-Private Alliance Foundation and its partners in relation to Haiti.  Also, Harry Stokes of Project Gaia will demonstrate the alcohol-fueled clean cookstove. The aim is to demonstrate concepts and materials that could be translated into curricula.  For details, see: 

http://www.ctaun.org/images/photos/2011NYCConFlyer-Speakers3-_2_.pdf 

January 15 – SImACT is organizing an event at SImACT headquarters in Brooklyn for presentations by, and discussions with, David Blume and others of Blume Distillation LLC.  (See article above re: Atlanta seminar.)    This is aimed to engage parties within and outside the Haitian-American community interested in the cookstove and micro-distillery initiative.

From November 29 to December 1 David Stillman and Fritz Clairvil of SImACT, Inc. attended the “Clean Indoor Air Cookstove and Alcohol Fuel Production International Forum” organized by the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture (IIEA) and Project Gaia, and held in Atlanta, Georgia.  (The terms alcohol and ethanol are interchangeable.)

In Haiti, PPAF, SImACT, Project Gaia and their partners continue to develop the clean cookstoves project.  The meetings with IIEA and the Alcohol Fuel Production International Forum helped move this forward..

David Blume, founder of IIEA (www.permaculture.com) and Blume Distillation, LLC (www.blumedistillation.com), ran the seminar in two days of lectures plus Q&A. Harry Stokes of Project Gaia made a presentation and stove demonstration of the Dometic CleanCook stove.

David Blume’s career spans over 30 years as an advocate, writer and public speaker on ecology, especially the subjects of alcohol fuel and related integrated farming.  Based in California, he has devoted much attention to actions for substitution of gasoline and other petroleum products in the USA, has served as a consultant in several other countries, and is familiar with development issues generally.  

The sessions focused on the benefits of localized production and use of appropriate-scale alcohol fuel combined with “clean fuel” stoves and appliances.  Alcohol fuels offer an abundant supply of energy for cooking, heating, refrigeration; electricity and transportation needs and can be produced from a wide variety of native plants, waste products and cultivated fuel crops ensuring inexpensive and sustainable production. 

A presentation on Blume Distillation, LLC was a key element of the seminar.  This new company will specialize in micro-distilleries from sugar and other feedstocks to produce ethyl alcohol in the USA and abroad.  Blume and his company are now seeking investors to cover an estimated $3.2 million, and purchasers.  Company representatives will visit New York in January to this end.

She wrote, “The Martha Stewart Show is a daily series that informs and inspires viewers on subjects from cooking and entertaining to crafting and gardening, hosted by Martha Stewart. This episode — dubbed “The Giving Show” — will ‘embrace the spirit of the holiday season with creative ideas for giving back.’

 Martha Stewart has a large and loyal following, both of her show and on social media channels.   We anticipate increased web traffic to the Alliance website, www.cleancookstoves.org, which should translate into increased traffic to your own sites or phone calls to your offices….” 

The UN Foundation appeared on an 8-minute segment alongside EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to discuss the challenges posed to nearly half the world’s population by cooking on traditional stoves or open fires. The goal with this appearance was to begin engaging a broader segment of the general population in the Alliance’s mission to drive solutions to this important issue.

Leslie Cordes (center, with scarf), explains Dometic/Project Gaia stove (at left) and others to Martha Stewart Show producers.

 The ethanol-based Clean Cookstove that the Public-Private Alliance Foundation, Dometic, Project Gaia, SImACT and other partners promote was one of four brought to the show.   Leslie Cordes writes that she described the stove’s qualities and unique attributes to Lisa Jackson and Martha Stewart.

  You are invited….

“Partners Against Poverty” Fundraiser

 to benefit the

Public-Private Alliance Foundation

 and its work in Haiti

Thursday    November 4    6 – 8 pm

Since the January 12 earthquake PPAF is helping Haitians revitalize their country by partnering with business, the Diaspora, non-profits, the Government, the United Nations and individuals on key projects that improve peoples’ lives and help achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. The fundraiser will help advance this. The Foundation also works in the Dominican Republic and Madagascar. 

The setting for the event is the outstanding exhibit of Haitian paintings on display at Affirmation Arts, on 37^th Street in Manhattan.  Actor-director Tony Plana of “Ugly Betty” fame, and pundit and rum historian Ian Williams will join us. 

A current main focus for the Foundation is collaboration with several partners to promote improved stoves and fuel in Haiti.  Locally-grown and distilled sugar ethanol will fuel cookstoves manufactured, marketed and distributed in the country.  The project aims to improve lives and health, especially for women and children, and reduce the heavy reliance on wood and charcoal that has stripped the country of forest and topsoil.  Livelihoods for farmers and small scale entrepreneurs will likewise be improved. 

Come enjoy the artwork, learn more about the Foundation’s work, and help Haiti build back better. 

WHEN:   Thursday, November 4, from 6 to 8 pm 

WHERE: Affirmation Arts, 523 West 37^th St., Manhattan (1/2 block from the Javits Convention Center; nearest subway is Penn Station) 

REFRESHMENTS: Wine, soft drinks and hors d’oevres 

TICKETS:  Students and under 30’s — $30; supporters — $50; sponsors — $250 and up.  Go to: www.ppafoundation.org and click on the “Donate” buttons for PayPal or JustGive.  Donations also accepted at the door. 

RSVP:  Tel: 914-478-3450 or e-mail ppafoundation@gmail.com for reservation, parking details, etc.