Haiti was an absolute whirlwind of color, long dusty car rides and countless stories of hope and resilience. I landed at the Toussaint Louverture Airport on the 9th of December with a rather blurry picture of what it was going to be like. I was part of a kick-ass group of students from Oxford working with Haiti's largest Micro-finance institution - Fonkoze. Our brief was to work on revamping their financial literacy program, to make it more interactive, cost effective and scalable. The costs were too high but Fonkoze was committed to expanding the reach of their programs and to ensure that every borrower had access to a sound financial education on using their credit to build more profitable businesses.
Before the actual work began, we had two extra days for a bit of brainstorming and sightseeing. We were staying at a hotel by the name of Paco-Breeze; a towering structure with remnants of colonial French architecture. Everything was great despite the evident communication gap between the super friendly staff and myself. One evening I requested for a mug of hot water (L'eau chaude) to make some coffee in my barely discernible French and hand gestures. After about an hour had lapsed I dragged myself to the reception for a reminder and a beaming receptionist directed me hastily to my room and showed me a humongous bucket of steaming hot water left right opposite the shower. "Pour votre douche' he said (for your shower) and I smiled and said 'thank you very much,'
Anyhow we all managed. On our second day in Port-au-Prince we got some time to explore the city. We walked down the streets lined with brightly colored snack stalls and barber shops and went to the shammas (city center) and beyond which was apparently an embassy no-go zone. We were desperate to see the Notre Dame cathedral, so we navigated through lines of slum dwellings, passing groups of boys playing an intense game of football and men gathered around way side corners listening to rap creole. The area wasn't the best toventure into if you didn't speak the language but the ruins were haunting and left gruesome reminders of a tragedy that spared none.
We officially started work with a three hour Design Thinking (DT) workshop for the senior leadership of Fonkoze to really get a more meaningful picture of what the problem was and why it was a problem in first place. This was my first time facilitating a DT workshop outside Sri Lanka, so that was quite special. We used two tools from the DIY Tool kit - Problem Definition; that helped us dissect the problem and see what the issue was really about and then an Idea Generator tool, that got the team to stretch their thinking in approaching the issue through a range of different perspectives. A week down the line the team's reflections during the workshop were where some of the most feasible solutions sprung from.
I think this is an issue that I've seen across many teams that I've worked with in the development sector - community work can be too draining, time consuming and complicated that we often don't take the time or in some cases 'have' the time to take a step back to reflect, brainstorm and have meaningful conversations with the communities we work for. Most often some of the best and most effective solutions to the problems we grapple with are found within the very communities that battle with these issues. Community engagement isn't just about surveys and focus group discussions - its about engaging people in active brainstorming and ideation processes. It's about giving them the power to design and create their own solutions.
After a restful stay at Laurence's (Laurence is Fonkoze's Director of Education and an absolute force of nature) idyllic country home and a wholesome home-cooked Haitian dinner we were off to the south of Haiti for a whirlwind of life changing interviews with groups of female entrepreneurs who were Fonkoze clients. For some of them it was their very first time being interviewed or just given the opportunity to voice an opinion. 'We know how to sell Bananas but god didn't teach us how to answer questions when we're asked them' said a grinning older woman. (Pictured below (L))
We heard from women who first learnt to write their names through Fonkoze's literacy program - Alpha Bon, others who no longer sold on credit or allowed their husbands to take off money from their business after the stories they encountered through the Jesyon Biznis course.
Fonkoze works through a grassroots network of credit centers made up of female borrowers from the locality and a center chief (also a borrower) who is trained to lead her center and to deliver their financial literacy courses. During our field visit we got the chance to interview over 50+ participants, all of whom were entrepreneurs. Snacks, animal husbandry and second-hand clothing businesses were the most often cited industries.
Nearly all of the groups we spoke to had no continuous access to electricity and in some cases running water. Yet their unwavering resilience and the hope and conviction in their eyes as they spoke about their businesses and ideas to make Fonkoze better were deeply moving. One group even suggested that having a TV to project the lessons will help them deliver the programs better and to a larger group. It was truly refreshing to hear such forward thinking ideas from communities that were completely off the grid and to see their relentless drive to do better despite still having to pay 10 Gourdes just to get their phones charged at the nearby charging station.
The (8th) Wandar Hotel
During our field visits the Wandar Hotel became our base along with the formidable presence of 'THE' Fabienne, who managed the place. Neither of us spoke a common language, as our team used everything from google translator to illustrations and hand gestures to order our Haitian spaghetti every morning. Fabienne was quite the character in Aquin, whenever the toilets flooded, or there was no water or some other debacle befell on the Wandar she would lean over the balcony and scream into the nearby slums and get the entire village in to get the job done. But while providing us constant entertainment, Fabienne taught me something important; that the human connection was something special and that it really transcended language and geography. Towards the end of our stay Fabienne had already declared me to be her 'petite soeur' (younger sister) and we had a good 15 minute conversation after which I gave her a little caricature on a post it note. I hope one day we will meet again.
One of the most wonderful things about field visits, are the people you meet and the stories they have to tell. For me Laurence, the Director of Education at Fonkoze was surely a highlight from Haiti. I couldn't possibly piece together words to describe her vivacious self. If the sun was a person it would probably be Laurence with her infectious laughter, calming warmth and her boundless love and faith in the women she worked with. During our field visit she spent close to 7 hours on the road and that too after 5 continuous days of interviewing nearly 40 participants, yet she would burst into a song with the women from the training sessions we attended. She held and loved them like her own, cheering on the small wins and laughing off the mishaps. She taught me so much about meaningful impact, about development and tackling the grassroots over just that week than I could have ever learnt over a decade. As she held onto the laughing women singing and dancing around her that day, she paused to tell us the meaning of the song 'you know us women, we're like grass. We bend but we never break'
Haiti, you were an absolute treat and thank you to Fonkoze and my incredible OMI team!