Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO)

Friday night, I attended a lecture at Belhaven College hosted by their biology department to hear Stan Doerr, President and CEO of ECHO, speak. ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization), is a non-profit, Christian organization in North Fort Myers, FL. The website, http://echonet.org, states their vision: “To bring glory to God and a blessing to mankind by using science and technology to help the poor.” To accomplish this goal, they work with community leaders in developing countries, using education, training, problem solving and networking to formulate hunger solutions for families and food grown in a difficult environment. His topic was "Using Science to Help the Poor." I was fascinated by the organization and what they're doing to fight worldwide hunger and poverty in Christ's name, and hope to be able to partner with them some in the future.

ECHO has a huge farm in Southern Florida, in which they test the best ways to grow nearly every fruit, vegetable, and grain known to man, in nearly every condition seen on earth. They then publish that information so that missionaries and development workers worldwide will have access to their research to best help the poor and hungry. I'm interested in their urban gardening and how that could be put to use in Trujillo. I'm going to see if I can visit them before heading back to Peru.

Check out this short BBC clip about ECHO and the world food crisis to get a better idea of what they do.