Project H2SOL is theme of documentary

The work conducted by the NGO Instituto Eco Engenho is portrayed

Pepper produced by the H2SOL project, supported by USAID
Photo: João Roberto Ripper/USAID

The Tapera Pepper Project, conducted with support from the Instituto Eco Engenho, in São José da Tapera, state of Alagoas, is theme of a French documentary produced by Kakie Roubaud. The fio will be exhibited on September 6, during the International Environmental Film Festival 2012, known as Filmambiente. The Tapera Pepper is part of the H2SOL Project and was featured in an article on the French site Youphi, related to environmental and humanitarian issues.

The small village of Baixas, at the rural area of São José da Tapera, shows a trajectory of success in which a community with one of the lowest Human Development Index in Brazil became a center of pepper production. The quality of life of local population has increased since the project started in 2005, and the average income of residents has risen from US$ 44 to US$ 197 monthly.

Baixas is an isolated village that lived in chronicle poverty. The challenges faced to help the local community were great, but thanks to the work of the engineer José Roberto Fonseca, founder of the Instituto Eco Engenho, the support of USAID and the American Foundation Fiorello La Guardia, it was possible to implement this megaproject. The idea of growing peppers by the hydroponic method and using solar energy was so successful that it became a model to develop similar projects in Mozambique.

The Instituto Eco Engenho, USAID partner in the Energy Program, was founded 11 years ago and develops projects based on the use of renewable energy to promote sustainable rural development in the Northeast semiarid. Through the H2SOL project, the NGO implements irrigation micro-systems in rural communities in the Northeast semiarid.