Employ 100 Rural Women: Create a sustainable Haiti

Since the beginning of COVID-19, we have been downsizing and pivoting to meet this new challenge. Along with these challenges came challenging decisions. We downsized operations in order to keep our employees safe and spread them out in a way that would respect social distancing recommendations. We scaled back our production team in order to conserve resources. While the number of positive COVID-19 cases in Haiti still remains uncertain, 8,600 cases have been officially confirmed while 26,445 cases are suspected as of September 20th, 2020. Thankfully, Fond des Blancs has had no confirmed or suspected cases reported.

We pivoted production and began prototyping reusable, washable masks. The mask production was key to keeping our women artisans employed and ensuring that the most vulnerable and poorest communities in rural Haiti are safe from COVID-19. We trained a total of 50 seamstresses--40 from Fond des Blancs and 10 from AFASDA, an NGO in the Cap-Haitien region on mask training and production. Our artisans produced 10,000 masks which have been donated to all of our staff, marketplace vendors, local authorities, partners, and clinic patients. With schools now open, we have focused mask donations primarily to school administrators and students.

Starting this month, we have shifted to our normal line of production at the Artisanat and have the women working in rotation on nightgowns and pads. We are eager to ramp up production to full speed by January 2021, however this is contingent on increased stability from our suppliers and logistics contractors. Our ability to procure raw materials these past few months has been severely impacted by COVID-19.

Help us ramp up production and support our artisans during these challenging times. 

So much has changed since our last update. As of this writing, there are 2,124 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Haiti, 5,244 suspected and 44 deaths. We are bracing for more and remain deeply concerned about the health and safety of our women artisans. Since COVID-19, we’ve pivoted our usual production and were able to obtain authority from the local police to keep our doors open at a minimum capacity. We partnered with an MIT group --CO-MASK to translate and post in creole how to manufacture masks. To this end, we are using the MIT prototype to make masks for the community. 

The ladies have made close to 4,000 masks which have been distributed to all of our staff, marketplace vendors, local authorities and partners, and clinic patients. We've educated our staff and continue to spread the importance of wearing a mask to protect against the virus. Our mask production is currently keeping our artisans employed and ensuring that the most vulnerable and poorest communities in rural Haiti are safe from COVID-19.  Our reusable artisan-made mask can also be purchased via our online store. If you buy a mask from us, we give one directly to someone in need in Haiti.

Links:

• Purchase our artisan made mask here