Tag Archives: UMCOR

Moving forward in Haiti - 2013 is the time!

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I’m back in Haiti. One moment I was cross-country skiing in Boston and the next on a tropical, sunny island sweating and dying to take off my heavy jeans that kept me warm on an overly air-conditioned flight. It’s always a joy to be in Haiti (for many reasons besides the warming sun!) and this time is no different. As Executive Director of a new nonprofit, my days are very distracted and busy when I’m in my Boston office. In Boston (or while traveling in NYC or Washington DC), I’m running from donor meeting to donor meeting, writing grant proposals, working to keep our systems and finances in order, maintaining communications, figuring out how to grow a team on a shoestring, and collaborating with my fabulous board to ensure that all the pieces are coming together in a strategic way. Determining our priorities is always a challenge with so many things on our plates.

A view over the Cap Haitien area

But when I’m in Haiti that chaos subsides a bit. In part by force because good internet is rare here and I’m not as tied to my email account as I usually am. When I’m in Haiti I am completely immersed in our programmatic work. Here I step away from my computer and stand in the building where we’re piloting. I speak with the first two women in our program. I sit and plan with our women’s NGO partners. I walk by beehives that will produce our beeswax and learn how the beeswax is prepared for candle-making. I watch Haitian candles emerge from their molds.

Beehives in Terrier Rouge that produce some of the beeswax used in Prosperity Candles

Here I have time to sit back, reflect, and engage in long conversations with stakeholders. When I’m here, the reasons we chose to launch in Haiti become crystal clear.

I know why we’re launching in Haiti, but it can be easy to forget them when buried in paperwork in Boston.

Siiri in a meeting with Elvire Eugene of AFASDA, a Prosperity Catalyst partner

Thank you to UMCOR and our Founding Catalyzers for helping us get here and launch our work. It is so important what we’re doing. By investing in women long-term as economic change agents - whose work then ripples out to impact the lives of bee-keepers, artisans, and all of their families/children - we are working to create long-lasting, Haitian-led economic development here in northern Haiti.

Team members learning how to make beeswax candles

 

Beeswax candles fresh out of the molds!

Hopefully by the end of this trip I will have narrowed down the pool of candidates for our Operations Manager position. I hope to have that person hired by early March and soon after recruit the first pool of women, conduct candle-making training, and then offer work readiness training. Very soon you’ll be seeing more Haitian candles, ready to reach customers just like you.

We really are creating change, one candle at a time.

~ Siiri Morley, Executive Director

Prosperity Catalyst is ready to launch in Haiti – thanks to the State Department and the United Methodist Committee on Relief!

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I have been speechless quite a bit over the last few weeks. And for anyone who knows me well, you know that that is very rare. I am just so humbled and honored by the support that has been extended to me as I launch Prosperity Catalyst in its first few months.

Just 3 months into the life of Prosperity Catalyst, we have been honored to receive two grants to launch our work in Haiti. We are truly humbled that our model of economic empowerment for women resonated so deeply with these two funders.

Days before Thanksgiving I received word that our very first grant was awarded by UMCOR. We have so much to be thankful for in regards to our relationship with UMCOR. UMCOR is devoted to relief efforts around the world and has been deeply committed to our shared vision of empowering women through fair trade efforts – they have been a wonderful ally to Prosperity Candle, our sister organization, in purchasing and promoting candle sales and sharing our story. Now UMCOR’s $50,000 grant will help fund our pilot project in early 2013.

And two days after Thanksgiving,I received an email from the State Department’s Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, letting me know that Prosperity Catalyst had been awarded an inaugural WEAmericas grant for $60,000. The WEAmericas small grant initiative (which stands for Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas) is a new program that has been launched to support innovative approaches to fostering job creation and entrepreneurship for women throughout the Americas. We are honored to be one of the inaugural grantees.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer noted when she met me in late November 2012 that the Prosperity model of empowering women through business opportunities with sustainable links to global markets is exactly the type of model they were looking to support. She said “It is an honor to be funding Prosperity Catalyst’s work in Haiti. Now we have to sell those candles!”

We are enormously honored to have this early support from such visionary leaders in our field. Thank you to UMCOR and the Office of Global Women’s Issues at the State Department for believing so deeply in our work. We will make you proud.

~ Siiri, Executive Director