The AP headline reads: “Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt.” With shock and sorrow, friends of Haiti around the world read recent reports of Haitians forced to live solely on cakes made from mountain dirt. As shortages, crop and infrastructure damage from hurricane Noel drive up prices, even the most basic staples become out of reach for poor people. About 80% of Haitians already live on less than $2 a day. And those at greatest risk are pregnant and nursing women and their children, who have the greatest need for adequate nutrition – and who bear the greatest burdens in the present society, along with the best hopes for the future of Haiti.
What can be done? A lot more than you think. And the Haitian Timoun Foundation (HTF) is at the forefront of that effort.
With its mission “That ALL May Have LIFE,” HTF has always made the eradication of poverty one of its top priorities, by empowering women and children through access to better homes, livelihoods, health care and education. The power of HTF comes through partnering North Americans with small, innovative, entrepreneurial, Haitian-run organizations – Haitian people with the knowledge, vision, incentive and passion to make a real difference for Haiti. HTF has no overhead costs; 100% goes to work on poverty and lifting up the children of Haiti (timoun means “little child” in Haitian Creole). Partnerships take the form of grants, child sponsorships, and educational scholarships – given directly to some of the top Haitian schools, residential and health care facilities, and visionary non-profits that can prove they are making a difference in Haitian lives.
Now, in the face of this latest news, HTF is preparing for a bold new initiative with one of its innovative and successful Haitian partners, called Fonkoze.
“Fonkoze” is a Haitian Creole acronym for Fondasyon Kole Zepol, which means, “The Shoulder-to-Shoulder Foundation.” Hailed as “Haiti’s Alternative for the Organized Poor,” it is the largest micro-finance organization (MFO) offering a full range of financial services to the rural-based poor in Haiti. Its mission is to build the economic foundations for democracy in Haiti.
Established in 1994, Fonkoze today is living up to its mission. It currently has over 115,000 depositors, over 50,000 active borrowers and 32 branch offices spread throughout every department of Haiti. As of December 31, 2006, Fonkoze had over $9.5 million in savings deposits, and over $9 million in loans outstanding.
What is the secret of its success in Haiti? 99% of its clientele are women, mostly mothers of young children, living in rural villages and small towns. Alex Counts, President of the Grameen Foundation and member of the Fonkoze Board, summed up their secret well: Fonkoze is tapping what I think is arguably the most power force in the world: a mother’s love of her children.
Here’s how it works: a group of five women, usually close friends in a single community, apply for a small business loan. These five form a “solidarity group,” each holding themselves accountable for the business. The first loan is for $75 U.S. over three months, and can grow to as large as $1,300 over six months as the business and the partnership thrives. In the meantime, these same five women join with other groups of five for support and education that focuses on literacy, family and business management, health and nutrition – all supported by Fonkoze branch offices and “Credit Centers,” which are run by already trained and empowered local women, each success stories in their own right and by their own efforts.
Like these inspiring women, Fonkoze and HTF make a great partnership, with shared values and ethics, and a mutual mission to improve the lives of God’s children. Now, both organizations are poised to take a new and even high road, for the sake of the poorest of the poor – the ones at the very bottom, without enough hope or the community connection to form a solidarity group.
Their new vision started in Bangladesh, where another microfinance institution developed a revolutionary way to empower the most impoverished – usually a widowed or abandoned mother with children. First, these bottom-rung families must be found – not an easy task, since they have usually fallen out of community and are barely clinging to life. Over a two-year period, the female head of this family is given one-on-one supervision and encouragement, along with training and support for health care, home repair, and a simple way to begin to earn her own living or build small assets for the family. As her confidence and self-worth are built up, she is able to rejoin her community and move out of abject poverty.
Fonkoze has already begun to bring this vision to Haiti. Calling it Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM), which means “Road to a Better Life,” they have piloted the project with over 150 families in the last nine months. Gauthier Dieudonne, the Haitian Director of CLM (second from right in above photo), estimates that at least 75% of the families currently in the project are doing well enough to stay on that road. “Of course, we are working to make that number more like 90 or 95 percent,” declares Dieudonne. The Director should know – he spends many days out in the countryside, visiting the families and the case workers walking alongside these courageous people.
The spirit Gauthier exudes is powerful and contagious. In fact, it is that Spirit that empowers HTF and Fonkoze to ramp up CLM to 1,000 families by the end of 2008. The cost for each family over two years is $1,000 – less than 1% of the median household income for the zip code 80127, the community in Littleton, Colorado where HTF was founded.
Is it possible to find 1,000 families across the U.S., willing to step up and walk with 1,000 Haitian families, as they take a proven and powerful new “Road to a Better Life?” HTF and Fonkoze take their directions from Jesus Christ: “With God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26)
