Healing Through Employment: 1000 Jobs Haiti
We've all heard the saying: Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime. Like many aphorisms, there is so much truth in this statement. And there are few places it applies to more than the impoverished Republic of Haiti.
According to the Human Development Index, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. The 2010 earthquake, which devastated Port-au-Prince, only made matters worse.
However, 1000 Jobs Haiti is here to help. The non-profit was founded back in 2009 out of Rhode Island and seeks to fight poverty by creating sustainable jobs at fair wages. 1000 Jobs Haiti is not a "traditional top-down charity" that relies on donations. Instead, they offer business, marketing, and entrepreneurial assistance to Haitian artists and cooperatives. The goal is to help create a thousand jobs—and a thousand opportunities—one person at a time.
To this end, 1000 Jobs Haiti has set up multiple projects throughout the country. In Mirebalais, "home of the Hot Flash Knitters," they train women to knit baby hats, scarves, dish rags and market bags, which are then sold in their online store at a fair price. In Corporant, they provide job training to students at the Centre de Formation Fritz Lafontant vocational school. And in Port-au-Prince, they have employed women to do embroidery work on pillows and specialty upholstery fabrics.
Founded by husband-and-wife team Reverand Deacon Leroy S. Close and Lucy Hart Close, 1000 Jobs is truly a labor of love. Want to learn more? Visit their website to find out how you can get involved.
