Help Haitian Families Rise From Poverty to Dignity

Thank you again for your generous and faithful support for families in Beyond Borders' Family Graduation Program. Your solidarity means more than I can say as families navigate this tumultuous time in Haiti.

Ensuring Safe, Dignified Housing for Families

Right now on Lagonav Island, supporters like you are helping to ensure safe, dignified housing for families in the Family Graduation Program, so that none of them ever again have to live in a house like the one pictured above.

One of the primary reasons that Beyond Borders invites a family to join the Family Graduation Program is the poor state of their housing. It's one of the things that keeps families trapped in extreme poverty.

And while your support is helping to change this for families, what they receive from you isn't a handout. Each family works extremely hard. They will do all the manual labor of taking the wood and lime and rocks and water to the construction site of their new (or repaired) home.

Each family will pay for the windows and doors too, thanks in part to their caseworker who, in weekly visits with them, will help them learn how to manage the money they are earning from the income-generating assets (like farm animals, or the goods to start a small business) that your support also provides. 

Your generosity together with their hard work and determination will transform the trajectory of their lives. 

Your generous support for families on their journey to escape ultra-poverty is making all the difference for them during a very challenging moment in Haiti -- and for that I can never thank you enough!

What is Most Special About Your Support for Haitian Families?

You probably know that the generous support of people like you makes it possible to provide families with either the goods to start a small business or animals like goats, pigs, chickens, and donkeys to raise and breed so that they can begin earning a reliable income.

But your support for families in Beyond Borders' Family Graduation Program provides so much more. 

Education and close accompaniment are the heart of what your generosity makes possible.

Thanks in part to your support, a trained, dedicated caseworker makes weekly visits to families throughout the 24-months of the Family Graduation Program.

Caseworkers provide coaching, intensive education and training in how to care for and produce income from their new animals or their new business, and ongoing classes in life-skills like how to start a savings account, and how to set goals and plan for the future.

Your support also makes it possible for families to have access to free veterinary care for their new animals and free health care for themselves. Home repairs -- or building an entirely new home -- latrine construction, and a small cash subsidy of just over $6 U.S. per week during the period before they are bringing in income are also part of what you help make possible.

Supporters like you also help families bring home any children they’ve sent away and enroll them in a quality school close to home.

But what is most special and essential about your support is the close accompaniment of families that you help provide -- something we believe is the key to success.

Many families selected for the program are isolated from their community, in part because of their extreme poverty. They feel alone and need close accompaniment and relationship building.

This emphasis on accompaniment and building relationships among families in the program fits well with Beyond Borders’ ethic and the way we work in communities. It's an approach rooted in the dignity, solidarity, and grassroots empowerment of families -- and it's made possible by you.

Thank you again for standing in solidarity with families during this difficult time in Haiti.

Your support is making their journey out of ultra poverty possible.

New Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to Ensure Families Maintain Progress

Our partners implementing the program were able to recruit and appoint a monitoring and evaluation officer in February 2024. Also during the quarter, the staff benefited from a retraining session. The retraining was conducted with the aim of strengthening the team's capacity. The training theme was: raising awareness. We discussed the graduation approach as a strategy for getting people out of extreme poverty, coaching, coaching plans, emotional etymology, and home visits with documentation. This training allows the team to have greater capacity to support participants in lifting themselves out of poverty and to have more knowledge in project advancement. This training was conducted over three days, from February 14-16 in Ansagalè.

Veterinarian Hired to Care For Families Animals

With support from people like you, a veterinarian was hired to take care of the animals for a period of 18 months in the Pikmi, Palma, and Titans sections. The veterinarian is responsible for providing care to the animals at the members' homes and at the gathering points. From January 16 to March 30, 2024, the veterinarian checked the animals before they were distributed to the members. The veterinarian's follow-up visits happen two to three times a week at the beneficiaries' homes. The animals need to receive medication on a quarterly basis after an initial dose, however, additional follow-up visits to the members' homes may be necessary based on the animals' needs. For the quarter, the veterinarian took care of the following number of animals: Goats = 276, Donkeys = 30, Pigs = 11. Thank you for making the vet’s work possible!

Small Cash and Food Support for Families Continues

With support from people like you, small cash support continues to help participants save money, cook meals at home, and engage in other activities such as buying an animal, starting a small business, paying for school, buying materials to build a house, and purchasing water for household use. The persistent dry season has had a significant impact on the participants' living conditions in the sections. There are 160 participants who received a total of 2,400,000 gourdes over 15 weeks of small cash support, with each participant receiving 1,000 gourdes per follow-up visit. Thus, participants received a total of 21 weeks of small cash support amounting to 3,360,000 gourdes. The small food support will last for 24 weeks in the project.

Nurse Provides Care to Families

For this quarter, the nurse continued to follow up with participants at their homes, providing consultations when necessary, as well as conducting medical follow-ups. While making home visits, the nurse had an accident, injuring her right ankle. After a doctor's diagnosis, she was given medical leave to help her ankle heal for a month. However, from January to February, she managed to care for participants through home visits and mobile clinics. She conducted a five-day mobile clinic session from February 5 to February 10, 2024, for 160 participants in three centers. A total of 480 people (324 women and 156 men) received care at the clinic. Among the 480 people, 152 were program participants, and the other 328 were their spouses and children. During the clinic sessions, the nurse discussed the topic of personal hygiene to help people take better care of themselves and their families.

Your Generous Support Made Even More Work With Families Possible

Here’s a look at some of the other work with families that your support helped make possible this past quarter:

• 160 families took part in a second training to reinforce their capacity to raise and breed animals
• Animals purchased and distributed to all 160 families
• Cash stipends distributed weekly during visits by case managers to help families respond to  worsening food insecurity
• 99 families received water filters
• Materials to construct sanitary latrines purchased for 100 families
• 160 families were active in their village savings and loan

Thank You Again

Your generosity and solidarity are making all the difference for families in a difficult moment for Haiti. Thank you for continuing to stand with families.

If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact Brian Stevens, Engagement Director, at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

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