A collaboration between SOC 119 and the people of Haiti focusing on the areas of Martissant and Cite Soleil in Port Au Prince. This is an initiative that focuses on supporting Haitians who are creating jobs for other Haitians. The work revolves around an organization called Haitian Partners for Christian Development, an organization that might more accurately called “Haitian Partners for the Creation of Jobs and Investment in the Long-term Sustenance of Haitian Entrepreneurs.” “It’s all about jobs,” says Ernso Jean Louis, the director of HPCD. “Haitians are amazing people with unlimited skills and the capacity for immense innovation. And many don’t need a lot; they just need small pushes and resources that they can’t get without outside assistance.”
So as much as we possibly can, the project steers clear of tradition forms of assistance and hand-outs, which often have the unintended consequence of undermining Haitian entrepreneurs and weakening the ability of Haitians to make it on their own. Read this excellent article with two examples of how this happens. It’s written by an American living in Haiti: “Better to Buy Local”
Here’s another excellent article from the journal, Foreign Policy, that lays out how local Haitian entrepreneurs can be undermined in Haiti. “A Tremor for Haiti’s Aid Industry”
Service Learning Project for Soc 119
Applying your power to address socioeconomic development in Haiti
This semester we are partnering with two community leaders Cite Soleil, Haiti. Together, along with Poverty Resolutions micro-financing group, we will focus on two areas of development.
Business Entrepreneurship
- with Ernso Jean Louis, director of HPCD (see above)
- we will facilitate the business growth of Haitian entrepreneurs
Education
- with Pastor Richard Hiluer
- we will encourage the development of a grade school for 320 students
More about Haitian Entrepreneurs for Christian Development
HPCD business incubator program helps Haitians with a business idea to get started. Entrepreneurs take a 6 month course to learn about business plans, accounting, and leadership skills. Upon graduation and receiving certification they can move to the business incubator where young entrepreneurs start to produce and sell their products. The first year’s rent is free. Eventually they will move into their own shops and employ other Haitians.
More about the entrepreneurs
SISA, or Stars Initiative S. A., is a Haitian business that HPCD has taken under its wing in order for it to expand and create more jobs. The company is run by two women, Genvieve and Isabelle, who are both Haitian natives, and who want to see Haiti’s import market drastically change. Currently, Haiti imports most of the products that it consumes, even though it is capable of producing those products at home. The women entrepreneurs produce four products: hot sauce, white vinegar, brown vinegar, and honey. To produce the hot sauce, the women buy peppers from local, Haitian farmers and make the hot sauce in their office. So, yes, this hot sauce is 100% all Haitian made. They then package the hot sauce into recycled bottles that they buy in the Haitian market, but have to get the labels made in the Dominican Republic, because it costs about half as much as it would to have them made in Haiti. This then puts them at a disadvantage in the grocery stores where their hot sauce is sold: because the labels are made in the Dominican Republic, and because they look more professional than other Haitian labels, the stores place the hot sauce bottles in the “Imported Goods” section. Isabelle explained, however, that if they were to produce their own labels, produced in Haiti, the product would not sell. So this puts the entrepreneurs in a Catch-22: Do they continue to use DR labels, but get put in the “Imported Goods” section in the grocery stores, where Haitians will not buy the product because they think it is made elsewhere, or do they use more expensive, Haitian labels, but risk people not buying their products at all?
*If you would like to learn more about specific entrepreneurs and his or her business needs, contact the Haiti team. Sociology119@gmail.com.
— SISA products —
GRADE SCHOOL
Here is the plot of land on September 2011
Here is the school on December 2011
— picture of uniform and backpack —
The funds raised by SOC 119 Fall 2011 class helped pay the entrepreneurs who made these uniforms and backpacks.
More about
PASTOR RICHARD is a community leader in the sprawling, southern most region of Cite Soleil. This is a particularly poor and violent part of Port Au Prince. In fact, when we visit, Pastor Richard meets us out on the main road to ensure that we arrive safely.
This man is one of those special human beings who has earned the respect of EVERYONE in the community. A part of this is because he is from the community — born and raised. But it is also because he works tirelessly for people who are willing to work but have so few options available to them.
There are many projects that he has pursued over the years — from building community centers to encouraging people to beautify their homes, clean the streets, and collectively establish goals and meet them. His most notable achievement has been to get the gang members to turn in their guns and seek a less violent path.
One aspect of the changed path that ex-gang members can take is to get computer certified. That is where he is asking for assistance. We told him that we’d look for at least TEN used laptops to get something started, but that we’d also find a way to help with other needs.
—pictures of current computer school–
MICROFINANCING PART OF THE PROJECT
All funds raised this semester by SOC 119 students will be channeled to Poverty Resolutions , a non-profit organization dedicated to the eradication of “one dollar-a-day poverty” in Haiti. Poverty Resolutions works towards this goal by micro-financing funds to businesses and entrepreneurs. Here’s how micro-financing works: a non-profit organization loans money to a business or and entrepreneur, with minimal interest rates. When the business or entrepreneur is able to repay the loan, the non-profit will take that money, along with any profit that was made as a result of the interest and re-loan it to another business or entrepreneur. In this fashion, more businesses and entrepreneurs are getting the seed money that they desperately need to expand their businesses. Wthat is also admirable about micro-financing is that the money is NOT A HAND-OUT or donation, but instead money that the business or entrepreneur will eventually pay back, so the business or entrepreneur does not develop dependency on the outside organization.
[...] Haiti Project [...]