What we do
Empower Women Artisans
Early on, Fanm Limye Association focused upon building the business acumen of artisan groups in the greater Port-au-Prince area. We used a competitive process to recruit artisan businesses led by and/or employing women. We delivered a rigorous business planning and management training curriculum to 194 artisans, 72% of them women, employed by 72 artisan businesses. We also provided product design assistance and exported artisan products made by graduates of our program to buyers in the US. Fanm Limye SA maintains a connection with a women-owned Canadian Fair-Trade company, Dandarah, which continues to buy products from artisans trained by Fanm Limye Association.
Our Artisans and their Crafts
Empower Women Farmers
The Fanm Limye Association takes a wholistic approach to empowering women. Our model integrates technical training, organization, and individual and community-level investments. The interconnectedness of these initiatives creates a more robust and adaptive farming system that can withstand external shocks and promote sustained economic development benefiting women, children, their households and communities.
Train Beekeepers
Beekeeping is a potentially lucrative economic activity that can be practiced by women close to home and does not require a significant investment of time or energy. It produces natural, healthy products which are regenerative. Bee products include honey, wax, pollen and propolis which are good sources of vitamins, minerals, protein, and carbohydrates that can be consumed within the family or sold to the community and beyond. There is a steady worldwide demand for honey. Beekeeping supports the environment as bees play a crucial role in pollination of crops, trees, and other plants. Beekeeping requires an up-front investment that farmers averaging $100 - $200 a year in farm income cannot afford. They need help with that initial investment. Once established a well-managed apiary can grow to include multiple hives.
Promote Agroforestry
Agroforestry systems are environmentally friendly agricultural practices which promote sustainable land management and provide a diverse range of crops and tree products, ensuring a more balanced and nutritious diet for families year-round. Having multiple agricultural activities also serves as a risk management strategy for households such that a shock to one crop does not necessarily mean poor income for the season since the household can rely on production from other crops. We are working to improve the productivity of the beekeepers’ 1-2 hectare farms by growing trees that not also support beekeeping year-round and produce fruits, nuts and leaves that enhance the household diet and/or generate cash for the family.
Agroforestry reverses land degradation, restores soil fertility, re-establishes vegetative cover, helping to conserve scarce water resources, making it possible to produce more per hectare than traditional farming practices. Agroforestry practices also diversify income sources for women and increase the supply of renewable firewood close to home. A farm that implements the full range of agroforestry practices will plant upward of 2,500 beneficial trees to serve as live fencing, alley crops, wind breaks and food sources. These trees help sequester carbon, while improving the productivity of the land and the food security of the farmer.
Promote Maternal Child Health and Nutrition
Improving family well-being is not just about treating the soil and land with respect and growing a more diverse array of crops; it is also linked to Maternal Child Health and Nutrition, which involves planning family size and spacing children to give each child the greatest chance of survival. It is about learning which crops can have the greatest nutritional benefits for mothers and children at various stages of development and how to prepare them to maximize their benefits. As smallholder farmers diversify and increase their productivity, they no longer need to buy imported food from the market with their limited cash. Many imported foods are expensive and highly processed, providing empty calories from sugar, which fill the stomach but do not promote good nutrition. It is well known that these foods can increase this incidence and risks of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, overweight and obesity and Type-2 diabetes. In developing countries, this creates what is known as the “dual burden of disease” where the country is now struggling to overcome diseases that are caused by both under and over nutrition.
Promote Women-led Community Groups and Associations
The community-based group is the foundation of our model, from which the program’s blocks of beekeeping, agroforestry, and maternal child health and nutrition are built up. Different members of each group are trained in each of these specialized areas and become community resources, helping other members of the group, and the broader community to learn and practice new techniques, and track their progress over time. The community group is also a microcosm of democracy in the community which gives women the opportunity to play a leadership role, since the elected leadership committees are majority women.
Participation in farmers' associations improves access to markets for the beekeepers. Introducing the majority female leadership committees of the farmer’s associations to business planning and financial management skills prepares them to create a sustainable aggregation site where they can store, process and sell their farm products. Perhaps one of the few silver linings of the current insecurity in Haiti is that it has disrupted the flow of imported foods to the rural areas and sent many city residents into the rural areas in search of security. These combined factors stimulate the local demand for food in these communes and provide an outlet for increased locally grown fresh farm produce sold at the aggregation sites. Once the security situation improves along the routes to the capital, our beekeepers will be well positioned to sell to larger scale buyers in Port-au-Prince.
This program has prioritized women to receive training and leadership positions in the beekeeping groups and associations, but it has also left space for men. This was done in part to avoid a backlash from men in the community, but also to take advantage of the knowledge and experience that men in these communities have in agriculture, business, and associative activities.
Respond to Emergencies
So far, Fanm Limye has responded to three emergencies: Hurricane Matthew, COVID, and the 2021 Earthquake. In each case, Fanm Limye consulted with our beneficiaries and delivered immediate support in the form of food, water, basic hygiene and santiary supplies and temporary shelter and then provided assets to help with longer term recovery.
Right now, gang violence is impacting the communities we serve. The artisans living in the greater Port-au-Prince area are most affected, especially the metal workers whose workshops in Croix des Bouquets are no longer accessible. Many are now working out of make shift workshops in their homes. We try to help them by continuing to serve as the bridge between them and Dandarah, their buyer in Canada.
In the rural communes of Arcahaie and Cabaret to the north of Port-au-Prince, which are the two communes where we work that have been most impacted by the spill-over of gang violence, our work with the beekeepers continues; however, our staff keeps congregating in large groups to a minimum. Meetings are held at the village level and staff collect security information from their network of leaders before venturing out to make site visits. Due to the danger of transiting through Port-au-Prince to attend the Maternal Child Health and Nutrition Training of Trainers, these two communes were unable to participate.
While the security situation in the six other rural communes is better, these areas are receiving migrants from the capital fleeing the violence. This is increasing the demand for food and other basic necessities in these areas at a time when the supply of imported foods has declined, creating a need for our beekeeping households to produce and sell more food. We are working with the three aggregation sites in these areas to help them scale up the supply of foods they have available to sell to the newly arrived displaced households, many of whom originated from these areas and are able to be welcomed by family members and former neighbors. If funding allows, Fanm Limye would like to expand its beekeeping groups to accomodate these new comers and help them readapt to life in the rural area. The road blockages have also made it more difficult to access needed supplies to build hives, which has led to the identification of new local suppliers, whose prices tend to be considerably higher.
Our Work in Action
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