Supporting sustainable fish farming in Haiti

Michael Peterson, center, and his sons Xander (12), left, and Beau (11), talk about the mobile application they created during an interview with The Korea Times at the Lotte Hotel in central Seoul, Wednesday. The application builds a fundraising network for young people to support Haitian families to farm fish. / Korea Times photo by Yoon Sung-won

By Kim Bo-eun

• Published Mar 31, 2013 7:05 PM KST
• Updated Mar 31, 2013 7:05 PM KST

Young students create fundraising network

By Kim Bo-eun

Profound issues such as war, poverty or climate change often leave people feeling helpless. Children, especially, often sense that something is wrong and that action should be taken to improve the situation, but they usually feel powerless to do anything.

However, with the right tools, even children can help fix problems. Fish4Life is one such tool. It is a mobile application service that creates a fundraising network for young people to support Haitian families in fish farming.

What makes the app special is that it was devised by two young students. Michael Peterson, president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, visited Seoul with his two sons, Xander Peterson (12), and Beau Peterson (11), to promote their cause.

The Peterson family visited poverty-stricken Haiti last year. The opportunity was provided through a colleague of Michael Peterson, who founded a project called Caribbean Harvest to help Haitian families earn a sustainable living through fish farming. After seeing the poor living conditions of many Haitians, the young Peterson brothers decided to make the mobile app to raise funds.

“Our hope is that if the kids really do that together, if they're having fun, they're using their phone in a way that feels good. This will be a grassroots type of effort,” said Peterson.

Caribbean Harvest

Caribbean Harvest was founded in 2005. Currently, 254 families are enrolled in the program. Its mission is to revive the commercial fishing industry in Haiti, initially by helping poor Haitians who live beside the country's largest lakes.

The project aims to provide sustainable economic development and jobs. It was founded on the proverb “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

Caribbean Harvest undertakes the first and last step of a three-step process of hatching, raising and distributing fish. In the program, local families are responsible for raising the fish. Each family receives two fish cages, as well as baby fish and their feed, which together have a value of around $2,700. The income the families earn through fish farming amounts to $2,300 a year, which is 3.5 times the average income of $660 per year. This makes the annual return on investment 85 percent.

Fish4Life has a unique investment model. Those who provide monetary aid through Fish4Life have two options: they can either donate a small amount, or invest in the fish farming project with a larger sum, which they will get back later on.

“If you give them the capital to start the fish farm, they can earn the money they need to do it. The income relative to the investment is so high, they can be helped and they can pay the money back, so it's a very sustainable way of giving,” said Peterson.

The project is part of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an organization that convenes to devise and implement creative solutions to global challenges.

Fish4Life has made a commitment to action under CGI. It aims to raise at least $270,000, which will support 100 Haitian families, through a contest held with the launch of its app in June.

The funds will go to additional families coming into the program. Currently, 500 families are waiting to receive cages.

Overcoming challenges

While in Korea, the Petersons have been raising awareness about their fundraising project. However, they acknowledged they would be faced with challenges, including the low participation of Koreans in charitable activities.

“Among the countries in the OECD, Korea is among the last in terms of providing aid,” said Michael Peterson. “However, it seems to be a growing trend; Korea's economy has been doing well, and countries that are well off tend to give more. Moreover, the Korean story is similar to the Haitian story ― they know what devastation is.”

A motivator is the prizes, which will go to winners of the fundraising contest. The first prize will be a trip to Haiti and meeting former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

According to Peterson, Fish4Life has no official employees. From the beginning, it was faced with challenges, but with voluntary help from many individuals, it was able to surmount them one by one.

When they first looked into creating an app, they realized it would be very difficult, not to mention expensive. However, Korean IT start-up company Evoly Studio volunteered to do the job, at no cost.

Promoting awareness has been and will continue to be a major undertaking for Fish4Life, but several Korean organizations such as Goodway with Us and Incujector have been helping out.

The Kwangwoon Foundation enabled the Petersons to give a presentation at its affiliated schools during their visit.

Philanthropy

Giving has been an important part of the Peterson family. Michael Peterson's grandfather came to the U.S. from Greece as an immigrant with no money or education.

He built a small restaurant in Nebraska and sent a portion of its profits to Greece. In addition, he never turned away any homeless people looking for food. "Although it was a small business, he was philanthropic in his own way," said Peterson.

He added that his father was fortunate to have done very well in his career and that he is giving most of his money to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which he founded.

“I will spend a lot of my life working on those philanthropic goals. I also thought it was important that my children learn about what’s going on in the world,” Peterson said.