Dear Friends,
Happy New Year!! It is winter in New England and the snow continues to fall. I have just completed my first nine months as Haiti Projects’ CEO. This position has been challenging, rewarding, but most of all so much fun. I am not only able to contribute to the work in Haiti, but am able to bring lessons from the real world to my classroom at MIT. And, the more I get to know the women in Haiti who work for us, the more I find myself in awe of all that they accomplish daily – raising children, raising livestock, selling wares on market day and sewing for Haiti Projects.
This blog introduces to you the women of Haiti Projects and their stories. It’s a place to learn more about running a Nonprofit that operates in the US and in Haiti. Here I will share our successes, our challenges, and our failures. It is meant to be celebration of Haiti Projects’ determination to produce beauty with bolts of cloth and spools of thread in the artisanat, to provide family planning services in our women’s health clinic with a motorcycle and healing hands, to offer opportunities to access the outside world using technology, books, music and classes through our library.
Haiti Projects is proudly celebrating its 20th year of service in Fond des Blancs, Haiti. Our mission to empower women continues to drive our commitment to bring the best kind of community development; development that recognizes what is working already and uses those successes as a catalyst for growth and change. We have many reasons to celebrate: The expertise and the initiative of strategic partnerships with the Kellogg foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and Mahila Partnerships. These partnerships are helping our products to reach global markets, assisting us in developing broader services at our Women’s Clinic, and are helping us stretch our imagination about how we can better serve, and how we can grow in a sustainable way.
But, we need more partners to accomplish our goals… We need you as our partner in order to continue this work and to impact the lives more women. When we join hands together to support this work, we help empower a woman, we help raise a family, and we help left a village. Please support the women and the work that they do with a generous donation, by purchasing our handmade products, or by volunteering your time.
Best wishes for a Happy 2014!
Cherie Miot Abbanat, CEO