Watch a new video CGAP has produced about Fonkoze’s Chemen Lavi Miyò (Pathway to a Better Life) program for Haiti’s poorest. It will inspire you.
Haiti was the first black republic. The first and only example of a slave revolution that successfully left a nation in its wake. On May 18th of each year, Haitians come together to remember these facts and their valiant revolutionary leaders as they celebrate their national Flag Day.
I spent this May 18th with some friends in the quaint coastal town of Archaie, where Haiti’s first flag was stitched over 200 years ago. The celebration brought out some of Haiti’s biggest politicians, including both the president and prime minister, along with scores of musicians, artists, and historically-conscious visitors. Below is a brief slide-show and video of the day’s events.
Filed under: FONKOZE, Haiti, Videos | Tags: Dominican Republic, FONKOZE, Ice-breaker, Peace Corps
When giving a long, formal training to someone who has never sat in a classroom, it’s always a good idea to mix in a little “fun.” The second video is a quick example of me trying to do just that for a group of Fonkoze’s CLM members. It’s a song and dance “ice-breaker” I learned while with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.
Why did we need to mix in a little fun? The first video shows why – it was shot a few moments before the ice-breaker. Tired students are not productive students!
For those interested: The song is about a magical rock that starts out the size of a pebble and grows each time you rub it while saying “A Massa Massa Massa.” By the end of the song, the pebble has become a boulder and is so big you fall to the ground! The lyrics aren’t in Haitian Creole nor Spanish, they’re just sounds that rhyme. The song is titled “Alele.”
In an ongoing effort to bring Haiti to you all, I’ve uploaded some videos of children I took while out in the field with CLM. Since only irrational people don’t like children, I expect these videos to be well received.
The first one was filmed during a CLM interview, so while the children play you should hear a faint back and forth in the background. The second video shows three children mashing millet to a nice rhythm. Usually one or two people do the job, but we asked that they make it rhythmic (for your viewing pleasure), so the duo became a trio.
Here’s another video for your viewing pleasure. It takes place in the beautiful coastal city of Jacmel, a city renowned for the pageantry and creativity of its carnival celebrations.
While most of Haiti scarcely sees a tourist, Jacmel has been a consistent tourist destination for decades, and this video shows a bit of what makes it such an attractive vacation getaway.
Actually, I have no idea what Carnival is like in Rio, though I bet it’s nice. But now, I do know what Haitian Carnival is like, and it is something to behold.
Haiti is supposedly home to some 9-10 million individuals, and it seems that every last one of them came out for Carnival in Port-au-Prince’s Champ de Mars area, adjacent to the presidential palace, Haitian National Museum, and some rather nice urban parks.
If you are lucky enough to make the trip for Carnival, you’ll see parades, costumes, pageantry, and order during the day, then a shift to musical pandemonium at night as the real crowds pour onto the streets. And, as demonstrated on the third and final night of Carnival, even torrential downpours aren’t enough to stop or even slow the show. There is a genuine commitment to partying.
So during the day, Carnival is much like any parade you’d find across the US, just with Haiti’s Caribbean style, music and fabulous artistic creativity. A peacock to the State’s show-dog, if you will. Then at night, all eyes turn to the titanic parade-floats, each resembling the “oversized load” hauled behind an eighteen-wheeler.
But then again, the floats are really just giant contraptions meant to boast famous Haitian pop artists and their passengers, who ride atop waving flags and dancing for the crowd below, and, just as crucially, massive speaker systems to blast Carnival music for the crowd.
Each float has one song and one song only, composed by the pop artist atop that particular float. Each float’s song is original, specially composed for that year’s Carnival. And the best song, as voted on by the Carnival Committee, is awarded a prestigious recognition of musical excellence.
Filed under: FONKOZE, MICROFINANCE, Videos | Tags: Development, FONKOZE, Haiti, MICROFINANCE, Reaching Vulnerable Clients, Ti-Kredi
While it is often claimed that microfinance reaches the world’s poorest, there are few microfinance institutions (MFI) that actually live up to the hype. Reaching the poorest is difficult and costly; it’s tremendously challenging.
Fonkoze is unique in the microfinance world for its uncompromising commitment to reaching the poorest, most vulnerable sectors of society. This is what motivated me to come to Haiti and seek them out.
This video is a compilation of some footage I shot on my way to visit with potential clients for Fonkoze’s Ti-Kredi or “little credit” program – the lending program aimed at Haiti’s near poorest sectors. It took just under two hours of hiking to reach these families and the video should make apparent their isolation.
The home visits consist of an informal interview to better understand the living situation of potential clients. Home visits are carried out on a community by community basis, with a 30% sample of potential clients visited and interviewed.
ENJOY!
Filed under: FONKOZE, MICROFINANCE, Ultra-poor, Videos | Tags: Chemen Lavi Miyò, FONKOZE, Ultra-poor
This is a brief video of Fonkoze’s CLM graduation (Chemen Lavi Miyò – “Pathway to a Better Life”). This is a program for Haiti’s ultra-poor women. It is not a traditional microfinance program and does not include a credit component. It is instead an 18 month intensive program where each woman is transferred productive assets like goats or chickens, given business and life-skills training, constant accompaniment and support from a Fonkoze case worker, and a small $7 a week stipend to help maintain economic stability. The program aims to radically improve not just living standards but each woman’s state of mind.
These are Haiti’s poorest women. Before the program begins they are literally women with broken spirits. Many have resorted to begging to feed their children. They often lack a male partner and none have any form of small business or productive assets, including no land to harvest. In self-evaluations, each woman invariably rates herself and her living situation as a one out of ten; they are on society’s lowest rung.
This program breathes new life into these women; it gives them hope and rejuvenates their broken spirits. It helps them overcome the fatalism that keeps them thinking they have no other options in life but to suffer this most acute form of poverty.
Here we have 50 women from Lagonav, a small island province a few hours from Port-au-Prince. Fifty out of 50 women successfully graduated and the data illustrates their leap out of extreme poverty. They have stable incomes, small thought they may be; they send their children to school; their health has improved; they have regained their self-respect.
Make no mistake, these women are still very poor, but the fire that a life at the bottom, that fear and failure had extinguished, is again burning in these women as they promise to “never go back” to extreme poverty.
