CURRENT PROJECT
The project aims to empower women and poor, rural entrepreneurs by providing them with education programs, which will develop their basic literacy and numeracy skills and will also teach them how to manage their small businesses.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND BACKGROUND:

Approximately 53 percent of Haitians are illiterate and/or innumerate. This high rate of illiteracy and innumeracy poses challenges to livelihood development. Without proper education and skills, disadvantaged individuals face challenges when trying to provide for themselves and their family. Poverty becomes inevitable for these disadvantaged individuals, who as result experience poor health and unsanitary conditions.

IDRF has partnered with Fonkoze to counter the effects of illiteracy by providing project beneficiaries with education and skill development programs. The projects targets poor, rural microcredit entrepreneurs who lack basic skills such as writing and record keeping. In fact, over 60% of incoming beneficiaries are illiterate. Providing them with educational programs can help them attain self-sufficiency, thus allowing them to provide not only for themselves but also their families.

PROJECT BENEFITS:

For participants, the outcome of participating in this project is life changing. The educational programs teach members to read and write, to make better use of their business, to protect the rights of their children, to advocate for their own rights as women, and to understand how to protect the environment.

Beneficiaries have even told our partners that their knowledge has made them better parents and community leaders. “My daughter now feels that she can come and talk to me. There are things I didn’t know about before but that I understand now.”

These women become leaders and agents of change in the communities they live. They also become much better at managing their business and thus can provide more for their families. 60% of new Solidarity loan clients cannot read or even write their name. This makes it difficult to track inventory and debtors.

Clients have reported that because they cannot write their name on their merchandise, it is often lost when they are moving it from Port-au-Prince back to rural areas for sale. Illiteracy is not only bad for business but often humiliating at the same time. One client who sells shoes told her credit agent that when her clients asked for a particular size shoe, she had to have the clients look for it because she couldn't read the numbers.

The Business Skills module takes the basic literacy the students learn and applies it in invaluable ways. Clients report improvement in business practices including better controlling revenue and expenses, improved ability to separate business and household finances, and a more forward-looking approach to business planning. One client reported: "I have [improved] my business since the program. My husband used to always tell me that I needed to keep records, and I would just ignore him and tell him I have it all in my head. But after this program, I realized that I really didn't and there were many things I didn't count as expenses. I have really corrected these mistakes."

GOALS & OBJECTIVES

Fundamentally, the goal of the education program is to meet a number of key objectives which result in 90-95% of the initial participants graduating from the program with key skills in literacy and numeracy and small business management.

Specific objectives of the program include: