Over the past 3 months, I've had the blessing of working with a few of our amazing Haitian pastor partners and the business owners within their congregations and it has been an extremely fruitful and rewarding process. 

Our approach was to have the pastors select a group of individuals from their congregation who they knew to be both successful business owners and solid men & women of faith.  This way they had a support network within the church of others they could seek for help, counsel, and spiritual support under the supervision of their pastor.  In total we gave out 18 loans to 4 different church groups this summer. 

The types of businesses we worked with varied and most were very simple street vendors.  Many of them frequently go across the border to the Dominican Republic where they can buy products in bulk for a lower price and bring them back to Haiti to sell for a modest profit.  Most of them specialized in a certain consumer staple like groceries (rice, beans, pasta, eggs), clothing, shoes, batteries/flashlights, etc.  Many of them have been doing business like this for 20+ years, while other started more recently as their only hope of supporting themselves after losing jobs due to the earthquake.

I also had the pleasure of working with some savvier and better established business people who had their own stores.  One gentleman, Augustin Jean Louis, runs a very successful bakery business called Boulangerie Pain De Vie (Bread of Life Bakery) with 2 locations, 3 employees at each.  When AIM first met him he only had one oven at the nearest location but was making a good profit on the bread he was able to produce.  By his own success he was able to purchase 2 more ovens, triple his production, hire some workers, and grow his profits.  He has a dream of one day owning 10 stores. 

While the money we lent him was not enough for him to open an additional store, it gave him the opportunity to purchase more products and turn it into additional profits.  It also served as the first step in what we hope will be a long-term relationship.  My goal for the future of this program is to identify more business owners like Augustin who are smart business people and have the capacity to employ more of their fellow Haitians.  As our relationship with them grows and they prove to be good stewards of the money, we will lend larger amounts, eventually giving them the capability to expand their businesses, open more stores, hire more workers, stimulate the economy, and hopefully help Haiti become more self-sufficient. 

The whole process has been a blessing for me.  It brought me great joy to see how grateful they were just to be given an opportunity to improve their situations.  On one occasion, after receiving the funds, the group of business owners gathered together at the back of the church to pray over the money and sing worship to God.  I think a lot of Americans have the impression that the people of Haiti have become so accustomed to handouts that they've gotten lazy and complacent.  I can report that what I've seen is completely to the contrary.  What I've seen is an eagerness to work and a hunger to become self-sufficient.  Many people feel beaten down by the futile economy and virtually non-existent job market, but their spirit of hard work and productivity is alive and well.  They just need a little help getting started.