About Us

የምድሪቱ ልምላሜ ለህዝቡ ፈውስ ነው

Who We Are

Established in 2019, FE has been implementing its environmental restoration program namely “Restoring the Environment and Equipping the Rural Families Program”.

We work as a team of over 34 full-time co-workers, 33 active volunteers, part-time workers, the vast majority of whom come from the contexts where we work. Our team is inspired by the shared transformational principles and objectives set out by Global PWP’.

Our Shared Mission

Plant With Purpose / Floresta Ethiopia is to reverse deforestation & Poverty by transforming the lives of rural people.

Our Shared Vision

Plant With Purpose / Floresta Ethiopia envision to break vicious cycle of poverty and deforestation by transforming it into a vicious cycle of environmental restorations, economic empowerment, partnership & community transformation / spiritual renewal

Our Shared Values

More About

We value and respect our partners
We act with compassion towards rural poor
We are stewards of All creation
We work in unity

Where We Are

Floresta Ethiopia head office is located in Bahir Dar, a regional capital city of Amhara National Regional State ( ANRS). The field office is Andabet district in South Gondar Administrative Zone of ANRS.

Our Shared Program Philosophy

Our Shared Development Programs

THREE PARTS – ONE PROGRAM

Investment in development areas including Water Supply, Energy, Education, health, governance, economics, infrastructure, etc are important for community holistic development. Although we recognize the importance of development in all these areas, we choose to focus on three: spiritual, economic, and environment. We do this because we believe we are able to make better use of our resources and expertise, and therefore have a greater measurable impact. We also believe that these three areas impact or are directly related to many of the other areas. For example, the quality of water supply is influenced by the quality of the environment.

ENVIROMENTAL RESTORATION /ER/

We work to improve the ability of communities to protect and care for their own environment, while allowing economic needs to be met. Ideally, we look for solutions which will improve the environment while simultaneously improving their livelihood.

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT /EE/

We work with communities with the goal of increasing household income and families' abilities to meet their own economic priorities now and in the future. We try to avoid direct economic assistance, and put the emphasis on the communities creating the conditions to improve their own economic situation.

PARTNERSHIP AND COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION /PCT/

We work to assist communities and church leaders in their spiritual growth and partner with local churches to increase their capacity to be agents of transformation in the communities where they are living. We are very clear that participation in the spiritual activities of FE is not a requirement to receive our services. The love and the opportunities we are sharing are unconditional.

How We Work

Believing the inseparability of improving environmental conditions and rural household incomes, the development approach of Floresta Ethiopia intermingles environmental restorations with livelihood improvement interventions focusing on the below three areas.

Trees

Trees are vital to life and key to environmental restoration. They heal the land by anchoring topsoil, increasing organic matter, and helping the soil absorb water. With the addition of trees, farms that were once unproductive are restored to health, providing families with nutritious food, income, and hope.

Groups

Sustainable Development Groups engage communities in all aspects of Plant With Purpose’s program. These locally-led groups meet consistently to save their income, access loans, and build long-term financial stability. Training in agro ecology, environmental management, and creation care further empowers groups to transform their communities.

Families

Through years of practice and continuous learning, Plant With Purpose has developed a unique program for rural families that integrates land restoration, agricultural improvement, and financial empowerment, rooted in faith.

Watershed Model

Floresta Ethiopia engages at a sub-watershed level because it believes watershades are the essential units for creating and measuring sustainable change. The watershed unit inherently promotes expanding the scale of impact in geographic and practical ways because it connects interventions at household level with intra and inter-communal, national and international issues of sustainable care for the environment.

The physical reality of a shared water catchment integrates environmental stewardship values with program investments in trees, soil improvement, livelihoods development and structural relationships within a defined geographic unit.

WHY THE WATERSHED MODEL?

● Everything in a watershed is connected ecologically, hydrologically, economically
● Ecological and human focus, deep impact on households and the ecosystem
● Human activity and watershed boundaries often correspond
● Allows us to focus our work & observe and compare our impact

The span of time we work in a specific watershed depends on a few factors:
○ The number of years it takes to achieve the Participant Saturation Target
○ The number of years it takes to complete the Environmental Core Curriculum (ECC)
○ The Impact Evaluation Results, reflect the speed at which the population is experiencing change
○ When the population is ready to Graduate from the Program

By its development approach, Floresta Ethiopia will hand over a watershed when the communities are equipped to progress beyond meeting their basic needs and effectively steward natural resources sustainably.

About us