Education Haiti Project #14935

Educate 30 Young Women Business Leaders in Haiti

by Mothering Across Continents

Project Report | Feb 28, 2014
Update: High Hopes Haiti Set to Grow in 2014

By Patricia Shafer | Chief Catalyst for Mothering Across Continents

Project Catalyst, Lauren James with Haitian woman

Last time we wrote you, we were $650 shy of our GlobalGiving Goal of $6,000 to support High Hopes Haiti. We have good news for which we are grateful. In the last two weeks, we reached the goal of $6,000! This ensures that the project to provide vocational, leadership and mentoring support to “Educate 30 Young Women Business Leaders in Haiti” will continue through June. And one of the standout participants is being trained to become project liaison long-term.

We are also thrilled to report that continued support through GlobalGiving is very meaningful as we speak to grant providers. We are now finalists for a grant from the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund in support of shared laptops and aircards for the young women in the program. There is also a final grant review process underway at nonprofit Dining for Women for which this project is being considered. This grant, if received, would fund another Summer Institute in August 2014, like the one managed last August.

In addition, we keep expanding collaborations and cooperative arrangements that will help this program be a sustainable model over time. Volunteer project catalyst Courtney Jackson has been busy organizing an opportunity to move our program into a new telecenter near Cap Haitien. The technology and administrative support for the center is funded by a large telecommunications company, and the center founder has proposed that High Hopes Haiti would be the designated leadership and mentoring program. And Patricia Shafer, Chief Catalyst of nonprofit Mothering Across Continents, where High Hopes Haiti originated will be sharing learnings with an all-girls high school in Rwanda interested in starting post-graduation “gap year” leadership and vocational training.

Thank you!

Students working with laptops

Class photo from High Hope Haiti

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Dec 2, 2013
Young Haitian Women-Growing and Sharing Knowledge

By Patricia Shafer | Chief Catalyst for Mothering Across Continents

Many of the young women in our program.

We are grateful to donors of our Global Giving campaign for our High Hopes Haiti “Educate 30 Young Women Business Leaders in Haiti.” As a result of the campaign, led by Project Catalyst Courtney Jackson, we extended our Summer Institute of vocational, leadership and mentoring training for 30 young women ages 15 to 30, many of whom are still in high school. Throughout September and November 2013, the project facilitator continued English language, computer literacy and small business skills sessions.

As a “give back,” women in the training group provided English lessons to small groups of children at a local primary school that received laptops in 2012. (See photo #1 below.) The young women have also interacted with more mature women in the community that receive micro-loans. (See photo #2 below.) They’ve shared tips on how to better grow small businesses and consider pooling loans for more impact. They wrote their first email expressing their thanks for this life-changing experience. We were able to share this story with members of a Rotary Club in the U.S. whose members are mostly Haitian-American. Some were moved to tears.

This momentum added credibility to recent grant applications to repeat the Summer Institute in 2014. In Haiti, where 76% of the population is “rural,” with many people living in abject poverty on less than $1.25 a day, supporting a young woman’s earning potential is a model of real empowerment. Donations that are making the current program possible underline the message that the program can be sustained.

Our challenge now is that we are only $650 away from our goal of $6,000 to fund the rest of this year’s program. This is exciting yet daunting. We ask the generous donors that made this year-long project possible: “What else can we do, together? How can we attract the last bit of support needed for this important project?” If you have ideas we'd love to hear them! Please email Courtney at cjackson@motheringacrosscontinents.org.

Thank you, again, for your support!

Children benefiting from Laptops & English lessons

Small businesswoman in the community near project

Links:

High Hopes Haiti project page

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