Tag Archives: Haitian candles

Off to Miami, FL to represent Prosperity Catalyst at global conferences and then to Haiti for the program launch

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Our building in Terrier Rouge, Cap-Haitien donated by North Development Corporation.

Today Siiri Morley, our Executive Director, leaves for Miami to attend a couple of conferences. One of the conferences she will be attending is the Sustainable Haiti Conference 2013 (SHC), a confluence of Haiti specialists, speakers and advocates. SHC is one of the largest economic development conferences centered around Haiti and topics at the forum range from small-scale business models, new energy development, public-private partnerships, diaspora and community development, etc.

We are also excited that Siiri Morley will be representing Prosperity Catalyst at the Impact Conference 2013 (IC2013). She has been invited to be a panelist for the session, ‘Empowering women through investment,’ a topic we deeply care and believe in. The panel discussion is set to take place Wednesday April 17th and we are looking forward to hearing more about it. IC2013 is dedicated to social venture capital and social enterprise and it will be a great opportunity for us to network with like-minded global impact leaders.

Siiri then heads to Haiti for our pilot project launch (phase 2) in Terrier Rouge, Cap-Haitien. She will be spending the next few weeks recruiting participants for the pilot project and training our new Haitian operations manager (Yes, we are excited about this as well!).

As our pilot program targets women in need of economic opportunity and our target population is comprised of women escaping gender-based violence, teenage girls school drop-outs and local women between 20-50 years old, our initial pool of applicants will be sourced from the membership bases of our women association partners in Haiti, AFASDA and Femmes en Nord, Siiri will be sending us updates about her travels and the program launch as they become available.

I am super excited about what’s in store for Prosperity Catalyst this April and May. I hope you are too! I also hope you will follow us and support us in this journey to empower and provide better opportunities for women in Haiti and beyond.

Haitian made beeswax for empowering women in Haiti

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Here’s a picture of a Haitian bee-keeper proudly showing off his beeswax from his hive (along with our candle-makers)! He is from the area and keeps bees on his farm. We use this beeswax for some of the candles that are sold by our sister organization, Prosperity Candle. We, at Prosperity Catalyst, will be using this locally-made wax for the candle-making training which is taking place next month in Haiti. We are really excited about what’s coming up in the next couple of months!

Looking back, we have come a long way since we started this project. We wouldn’t have any beeswax from Haiti at all if it wasn’t for the help of two of our partners who have been instrumental in this endeavor: North Coast Farms and Community Development Corporation (NCDC) and Heifer International (HI). NCDC helps us source for high quality exportable wax and did the initial candle-making training with Landy and Wilnese. HI has been working with and supporting beekeepers in Haiti in order to improve the quality of bee products. We are also thrilled that, in the process, we are helping increase the biodiversity in the area as beekeeping and cultivation of honey-yielding plants improve the environment by pollinating area around their hives.