How women in Haiti are making jam and earning their daily bread

Approximately 600 women in southeast Haiti have received financing to restart their businesses paralyzed by the earthquake. Processing fruit, selling products in the marketplace, and raising poultry are just some of the tasks they perform.

The outskirts of Jacmel are once again filled with the sweet smell of fruit and sugar simmering together, as they have not been since the earthquake struck on January 12, 2010.

Aware of the importance of promptly revitalizing the agri-food industry, CIDA funds social, economic, and technical projects in Haiti through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. After the earthquake, the fund was realigned to give priority to early recovery activities.

Approximately 600 women in southeast Haiti have received funds to restart their businesses that were paralysed by the earthquake. These women now process fruit, sell products in the marketplace, or raise chickens. The loans, granted in cooperation with Haiti's Ministry of the Status of Women and Women's Rights, have enabled these women to restart their small businesses and also to feed their families and send their children to school.

These initiatives have had very positive benefits. Just ask Uzale Rumay. Twenty years ago, with other colleagues, she founded a women's group called Ateliers pilotes agroalimentaires de Meyer (Meyer agri-food pilot workshops). "The young women who come here receive training and earn a livelihood. They help to put food on the table and pay their children's school fees."

In Uzale's kitchen, a dozen women busily process fruit. Some peel guava, sweet granadilla, and chadèque (a yellow fruit that resembles a grapefruit). Others skim the fruit as it simmers in pots. This workshop produces jam, marmalade, and peanut butter―foods that used to be widely available in south and southeast Haiti, and even in Port-au-Prince. For the time being, these products are sold locally at a small store next to the kitchen. Now that production has resumed, these women will soon expand their business and start distributing again outside Jacmel.

CIDA is actively involved in rebuilding these microbusinesses that are so important to the women of Haiti. The country has been affected, not only by an earthquake, but also by torrential rains and cholera. Assistance mainly takes the form of funding but also of active participation by professionals, who advise these women in a variety of areas. Seven projects similar to the one featured here have been implemented to assist earthquake survivors in south Haiti.

With the funds provided to them after they lost everything in the earthquake, these merchants were able to rebuild their inventory and start doing business again. With the profits from their business, they are even able to offer a wider range of products while repaying their loan. Selling their products lets them not only earn a livelihood but also feed themselves, help their families, and play an active role in their community. They are also committed to repaying 50 percent of the loan to allow the organization's outreach to other women.

CIDA funding has provided the means for the implementation of a project managed by Christiane Doya: a laying house with 50 hens. To ensure maximum production, the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture offered Christiane training with an agronomist. Now, she and other women from the Jacmel region help supply the local market with fresh eggs―a renewable resource.

CIDA funding has also provided the means for the implementation of a project managed by Christiane Doya: a laying house with 50 hens. To ensure maximum production, the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture offered Christiane training with an agronomist working in the region. Christiane and other women in the Jacmel area are now helping supply the local market with fresh and renewable products.

The role of on-site volunteers is also to help these 600 women develop this source of sustainable income. The women are offered free training in management, as appropriate to their microbusiness, basic economics, and marketing of their products.

More than 39 such projects are underway or are about to be implemented. Among other things, these projects will provide training to 550 women in the management of economic activities and in the running of 35 local sewing workshops that will produce uniforms for displaced students.

The sweet smell of simmering fruit fills the workshop and the eyes of the women fill with shining pride. Natural disaster struck, and they were robbed of their rightful place. That place is now being restored.

Project profile for Bati Lavi Fund

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