Dear colleagues,
On Monday, the summit’s expert practitioners and several others visited local families around (the town of) Thomonde to learn about their social and economic situation. One of the women we met was named Marie. She was born in 1978, grew up in Carrefour in Port-au-Prince, but attended school only through the second grade. Her mother died when she was four years old, and she never knew her father because he lived in New York and later died. She has only one sibling, an older brother. Raised by her aunt, she helped with the housework and was sent to the market daily to buy food for the family.
When she was nine years old, Marie’s aunt moved to Miami, and a cousin took charge of the house. Her cousin beat her and treated her like a servant. When she was 17, she ran away with a girl who was a maid for a family in the same neighborhood. The girl was from Mamou, a peasant community in the Central Plateau, so they decided to go there. She stayed with the girl’s family for a while, and life was not too bad. She sold things for the family in the market in Thomonde. But she got no money for doing this, and she began to feel this was unfair and decided to leave.
Around this time she met her partner, Roland, in the market at Thomonde, where he bought chickens to sell in Port-au-Prince. They rented land from his family, for which they pay 5,000 gourdes ($137) a year, and moved in together. She continued buying and selling in the market, and Roland worked as a sharecropper planting millet and corn. Marie gave birth to two children, and they were poor but getting by.
In 1998, suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, Marie went to Zanmi Lasante, where she tested positive for HIV. The next year, Roland began having fevers and diarrhea. Thinking that a former friend had casr a spell on him, he went to the voudou doctor. After spending all the money he had, but getting better, he finally went to Zanmi Lasante where he too tested positive for HIV. Since then, they had two more children – both of whom are also HIV positive. Marie says that both of the children were unplanned, but since the youngest was born she is on family planning.
Now all four of them are on anti-retroviral medication, provided by Zanmi Lasante. Since they became sick, they find it very difficult to work. Marie would like to continue her business in commerce, but lacks the capital to get it started. Also, she says she needs a mule, because she can no longer carry heavy loads. She continues to do washing, cleaning and cooking at home. Roland works in the fields from 6 to 8 a.m. but can no longer work when the sun comes out because the heat bothers him. He also makes charcoal from time to time when he can buy the wood or, when it rains, using any fallen branches he’s able to forage. He wanted to go to Santo Domingo to find better work but has decided not to, because of the HIV treatment. Although Marie has some family in the United States, she has no contact with them, and they don’t know whether she’s alive. His family is in the area but struggling to survive themselves.
Roland says there’s lots of gossip in the community, and that other children tell his children they can’t bathe in the river “because you have AIDS”. When the family receives food aid, some neighbors refuse to share it because they say it’s food “for people who are sick”. When people say such things, Roland, a very mild-mannered, kind person says it makes him feel like attacking them with a machete. Their main activity is sitting around at home with their children – they don’t visit others’ houses, because they already have bad ideas about them.
Marie’s attitude is different. “I’ve heard that the disease I have is not only in Haiti, and it’s not only me,” she said. “It’s a disease that people have all over the world. I can’t let myself get discouraged about it.”
Every month the family receives rice, beans, salt, and a half-gallon of oil from World Vision, though in October they got nothing because World Vision was focused on the crisis in Gonaives. Zanmi Lasante gives her and her husband each 150 gourdes ($4) every month when they go for their check-ups. All the children except the baby go to school, which Zanmi Lasante pays for
- 1,000 gourdes ($27) a year. The family is responsible for books and uniforms. Zanmi Lasante has also built a tiny house for them. It has a tin roof and a cement floor, but the roof was mounted too high and water seeps in when it rains. The house has two rooms, a table, a radio, and tin cups and dishes.
She knows people in Thomonde borrow from moneylenders, but she has never done this. She does buy things on credit, though. The condition for buying on credit is to repay the money after a couple of days. If you don’t have the money, you have to negotiate for more time. Sometimes she has to sell a chicken to repay the lender. She feels buying and reselling animals would be a profitable activity. She explained that people will always buy animals as a good investment. When a member of our team asked whether she would be able to care for five pigs, if they were given to her, she answered yes. “Where would the food come from?” Marie immediately answered that she would sell one of them in order to buy food to feed the other four.
After our session with Marie and Roland, our global practitioners summarized what they feel the family needs now:
“This family has the will, the hope, and the entrepreneurial spirit they need to succeed. But they also realize that their security depends on Zanmi Lasante’s assistance. The solution for them is a combination of animal raising and trading in the marketplace a day or two a week. They need some cash flow, which selling in the marketplace will provide. They could manage a small, soft loan to help them get started. Once they have a small success, we should consider lending them a donkey, which they could then rent out on the days Marie does not go to the market. Fonkoze would need to visit them weekly to continue motivating them. A bigger problem is the absence of good relationships in their community. These will take longer to build, but they need to be encouraged.”
Best regards,
Ethan Casey
Zanmi Lasante/Fonkoze summit publicity http://www.fonkoze.org/summit.htm
________________________________________________
Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2
On Monday, the summit’s expert practitioners and several others visited local families around (the town of) Thomonde to learn about their social and economic situation. One of the women we met was named Marie. She was born in 1978, grew up in Carrefour in Port-au-Prince, but attended school only through the second grade. Her mother died when she was four years old, and she never knew her father because he lived in New York and later died. She has only one sibling, an older brother. Raised by her aunt, she helped with the housework and was sent to the market daily to buy food for the family.
When she was nine years old, Marie’s aunt moved to Miami, and a cousin took charge of the house. Her cousin beat her and treated her like a servant. When she was 17, she ran away with a girl who was a maid for a family in the same neighborhood. The girl was from Mamou, a peasant community in the Central Plateau, so they decided to go there. She stayed with the girl’s family for a while, and life was not too bad. She sold things for the family in the market in Thomonde. But she got no money for doing this, and she began to feel this was unfair and decided to leave.
Around this time she met her partner, Roland, in the market at Thomonde, where he bought chickens to sell in Port-au-Prince. They rented land from his family, for which they pay 5,000 gourdes ($137) a year, and moved in together. She continued buying and selling in the market, and Roland worked as a sharecropper planting millet and corn. Marie gave birth to two children, and they were poor but getting by.
In 1998, suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, Marie went to Zanmi Lasante, where she tested positive for HIV. The next year, Roland began having fevers and diarrhea. Thinking that a former friend had casr a spell on him, he went to the voudou doctor. After spending all the money he had, but getting better, he finally went to Zanmi Lasante where he too tested positive for HIV. Since then, they had two more children – both of whom are also HIV positive. Marie says that both of the children were unplanned, but since the youngest was born she is on family planning.
Now all four of them are on anti-retroviral medication, provided by Zanmi Lasante. Since they became sick, they find it very difficult to work. Marie would like to continue her business in commerce, but lacks the capital to get it started. Also, she says she needs a mule, because she can no longer carry heavy loads. She continues to do washing, cleaning and cooking at home. Roland works in the fields from 6 to 8 a.m. but can no longer work when the sun comes out because the heat bothers him. He also makes charcoal from time to time when he can buy the wood or, when it rains, using any fallen branches he’s able to forage. He wanted to go to Santo Domingo to find better work but has decided not to, because of the HIV treatment. Although Marie has some family in the United States, she has no contact with them, and they don’t know whether she’s alive. His family is in the area but struggling to survive themselves.
Roland says there’s lots of gossip in the community, and that other children tell his children they can’t bathe in the river “because you have AIDS”. When the family receives food aid, some neighbors refuse to share it because they say it’s food “for people who are sick”. When people say such things, Roland, a very mild-mannered, kind person says it makes him feel like attacking them with a machete. Their main activity is sitting around at home with their children – they don’t visit others’ houses, because they already have bad ideas about them.
Marie’s attitude is different. “I’ve heard that the disease I have is not only in Haiti, and it’s not only me,” she said. “It’s a disease that people have all over the world. I can’t let myself get discouraged about it.”
Every month the family receives rice, beans, salt, and a half-gallon of oil from World Vision, though in October they got nothing because World Vision was focused on the crisis in Gonaives. Zanmi Lasante gives her and her husband each 150 gourdes ($4) every month when they go for their check-ups. All the children except the baby go to school, which Zanmi Lasante pays for
- 1,000 gourdes ($27) a year. The family is responsible for books and uniforms. Zanmi Lasante has also built a tiny house for them. It has a tin roof and a cement floor, but the roof was mounted too high and water seeps in when it rains. The house has two rooms, a table, a radio, and tin cups and dishes.
She knows people in Thomonde borrow from moneylenders, but she has never done this. She does buy things on credit, though. The condition for buying on credit is to repay the money after a couple of days. If you don’t have the money, you have to negotiate for more time. Sometimes she has to sell a chicken to repay the lender. She feels buying and reselling animals would be a profitable activity. She explained that people will always buy animals as a good investment. When a member of our team asked whether she would be able to care for five pigs, if they were given to her, she answered yes. “Where would the food come from?” Marie immediately answered that she would sell one of them in order to buy food to feed the other four.
After our session with Marie and Roland, our global practitioners summarized what they feel the family needs now:
“This family has the will, the hope, and the entrepreneurial spirit they need to succeed. But they also realize that their security depends on Zanmi Lasante’s assistance. The solution for them is a combination of animal raising and trading in the marketplace a day or two a week. They need some cash flow, which selling in the marketplace will provide. They could manage a small, soft loan to help them get started. Once they have a small success, we should consider lending them a donkey, which they could then rent out on the days Marie does not go to the market. Fonkoze would need to visit them weekly to continue motivating them. A bigger problem is the absence of good relationships in their community. These will take longer to build, but they need to be encouraged.”
Best regards,
Ethan Casey
Zanmi Lasante/Fonkoze summit publicity http://www.fonkoze.org/summit.htm
________________________________________________
Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2
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