Women's Economic Empowerment

We empower Haitian women by fostering entrepreneurship and sustainable livelihoods

Women's Small Business Initiative

The Women’s Small Business Initiative (WSBI) provides business training and affordable financing to help women build self-sustaining businesses to increase income, meet living needs, and achieve financial independence.

The program offers:

Business training via the Street Business School curriculum
Collateral-free low-interest loans (1.5%) to launch or expand businesses
Grants, including merchandise, livelihood assets, and cash support
Access to a savings pool for entrepreneurs
Up to 3 years of coaching

Monitoring and Evaluation
We employ advanced tools like the Taroworks mobile app for field data collection and the Salesforce cloud-based database to measure our impact. Our success metrics include income growth, the establishment of sustainable and profitable businesses, and enhancements in quality of life.

Our ongoing coaching includes both scheduled and unannounced field visits to provide support and monitor progress. We also hold regular meetings with participants to discuss their experiences, address challenges, and provide further guidance.

Innovative Business Sustainability
Undercapitalization often leads to business failure and debt traps. To combat this, we’ve introduced grants to bolster businesses and ensure profitability alongside loans. Grants come in various forms, including merchandise and cash. For instance, rural women have received goats as grants, alongside their initial loans. While goats can be sold, two must be retained for breeding and income generation. The revenue generated from selling goat offspring is reinvested to nurture and expand businesses. This innovative approach has led to substantial results, with income increasing by 30% to over 100%.

Women’s Goat Project

The Women’s Goat Project (WGP) is a unique “micro-lending” program specific to rural areas. This program uses goats as currency instead of cash. Participants pay back in goat progeny, not cash. Each participant is ‘loaned’ 2 goats and must return 2 goats to a new participant. Goats can be sold but a brood of 2 goats must be kept for breeding and income generation. The goat project helps increase family income. It can also improve involvement in the village savings and loans associations and catalyze business creation.