Trade Tools for Entrepreneurs in Haiti

Providing youth with the tools they need for success - this is the goal of ASAP’s new Tools For Empowerment (TFE) project. The project will bring hope to thousands of Haitian adolescence and provide job skills & volunteer opportunities for youth in Georgia. Plus, TFE will promote financial literacy, increase access to capital and foster cross-cultural understanding.

In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, 55% of the population lives on less than $1 per day. Here the Salesian Missions of Don Bosco (SMDB) provides quality vocational training and education, providing skills to needy youth. Yet young job seekers too often become disillusioned. Jobs are so scarce and employers usually require workers to provide their own tools. Through a partnership with ASAP, the TFE project will provide trade tool kits to SMDB graduates so they can put their skills to work to generate income or access employment.

In Georgia, tool kits for trades such as carpentry, metalworking, plumbing and electrical will be assembled from donated new and recycled tools and equipment by volunteers and shipped to Haiti. Each tool kit will also include training materials on how to establish and manage Savings Groups (SGs), which are formalized clubs where self-selected groups meet regularly to save and lend small amounts of money among themselves. SGs are a hugely successful (over 8.4 million SG members world-wide) method for the economically active poor to access funds to operate their informal income generating activities. ASAP has been providing training in SGs since 2001, helping over 85,000 families access capital through SGs. With TFE tool kits, graduates will be able to put their newly acquired skills to use and access start-up capital to earn a living.