Work Readiness Training program in Haiti
On 22nd of May 2013, the day all of us here at Prosperity Catalyst had been waiting for finally arrived! On this day, we welcomed 40+ women to our 8-Day Work Readiness Training program in Cap Haitien, Haiti. These women were recruited with the help of our women association partners like AFASDA, Femmes en Nord and Women of Milot and the group comprises of women escaping gender-based violence, teenage girls school drop-outs and other local women.
This 8-day training hopes to teach these prospective women apprentice entrepreneurs the ins and outs of being part of a formal economy and of being entrepreneurial professionals. Upon completion of this training, some of these women will be delving directly into the art and science behind candle-making and we are excited to have Ted Barber (Prosperity Candle’s President) leading this part of the training program.
The first few days of training was aimed at work behavioral lessons. The trainer engaged the attendees with questions that ranged from, ‘Why are we meant to work?’ to ‘What is it that you can do to make your business and work become more effective?‘. The attendees were open and engaged, sharing more than just their aspirations. They have so far showed that they are very keen on learning about entrepreneurship and building their own businesses. Due to the general interest of the attendees and success of the sessions thus far, it was decided that the third day of the training (Friday, 24th) would span the whole day instead of the usual half-day sessions.
We are really excited that our vision is finally bearing fruition. We are thrilled that we will be able to foster entrepreneurship skills among these Haitian women and also select 10-12 who are interested to launch new businesses and take ownerships of the candle enterprises. Through this effort we will be able to empower our apprentice entrepreneurs to start their own enterprises and at the same time help source and strengthen the local Haitian beeswax, fragrances and artisan products markets.
The birth of Fanm Limye
Our Haiti operations has a beautiful Haitian Creole name. Prosperity Catalyst is called Fanm Limye which means “women illuminated or enlightened”. A beautifully sounding and meaning name, chosen aptly to represent our mission and our hope for our women in Haiti and beyond. We hope that the skills and lessons learned through our programs will be able to illuminate the lives of these beautiful women, their families, and their community.
We are also very thankful for the team of amazing and strong women who are supporting Fanm Limye on the ground in Haiti. We have had Regine, our Interim Country Director, DeeDee, our Operations Manager and Emilie, our Operations Consultant, working tirelessly and effortlessly behind the scenes making this a successful program. We also asked them about how it felt to put together Fanm Limye and witness the training program, and this was Emilie’s response:
“It is not easy bringing into being something new and different in Haiti. The proverb here, “Beyond the mountains, more mountains,” is very apt, in that every step of the way exposes hidden challenges and more mountains to climb. In such an environment, people have developed great capacity for flexibility, adaptation, and learning to work together cooperatively in order to manifest a vision of a better day.
When I attended the women’s work readiness training, one aspect of thoughtful and comprehensive preparation for Prosperity Catalyst/Famn Limye work, I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of the trainers and the women themselves. In their personal introductions at the start, many had notes for reference, and had clearly thought about t
his next transformative step they would like to take for themselves, their families, their communities. Facilitating from the beginning a sense of ownership and agency in a process and in creating a sustaining business, is crucial to the success of this program. Clearly in this case, this culture in integrated from the very first spark of creation of Famn Limye.”
As we move on to the 4th day of our 8-day work readiness training, we will keep updating everyone about the progress. Thank you for being part of this journey thus far and we hope you will pass on this message to others who may be interested. Please stay tuned!
