Fonkoze’s CLM program employs specially trained case managers to work with CLM members throughout an intensive 18-month process to help them build sustainable livelihoods with the  confidence and skills necessary to create a better life for themselves and their families.

CLM provides each member with the productive assets – such as livestock or a commerce inventory – needed to start two income generating activities.  All CLM members also receive  the materials to construct a 9×9 meter home with a sturdy roof, a stable floor, and a latrine; and a

water filter.

Each member also receives a small cash stipend while her fledgling business grows and free healthcare in partnership with Zanmi Lasante, Partners in Health’s Haitian sister organization.

But the CLM case managers remain at the heart of the program. Case managers make weekly visits to every member, which often require overnight stays and hours-long hikes to reach women in Haiti’s most remote locations.

During their visits, CLM case managers provide each member with confidence-building, enterprise management, and life skills training. They also help each woman to successfully navigate the unique challenges she encounters throughout the process and to build a plan for her future as she moves forward. In turn, the women provide the hard work, determination and resilience to succeed.

To create confident, successful members and clients, Fonkoze offers Business Skills Training tailored to each of the first three Steps on our Staircase Out of Poverty. This instruction teaches members the fundamentals of small business management, enabling them to be competitive and make sound financial decisions.

At the beginning of Fonkoze’s first Step, our Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM) program, new members participate in a six-day enterprise training workshop, during which they prepare to manage the assets provided to them by CLM. Every three months afterwards, they participate in four-day review sessions to hone their new skills.

The core of their training, however, takes place during one-on-one weekly meetings with their case managers. Over the course of the 18-month CLM program, they review their business decisions with their case managers and learn to plan strategically, using their newfound financial security to think beyond how they will find their next meal. By the program’s end, CLM members have the skills to act as confident small businesswomen.

Prior to starting Step two, the Ti Kredi program, new Ti Kredi clients participate in a four-week training course that introduces them to microfinance, Fonkoze’s lending program, and basic financial and business management concepts. The course prepares new clients to receive their first microloans, and Ti Kredi credit agents continue to build on their skills during weekly meetings throughout the six-month program. After completing the program, many  Ti Kredi clients continue into Solidarity Lending.

 Fonkoze offers the opportunity for Solidarity  clients to participate in Business Skills, a three-month class taught by fellow clients who have been trained and certified by a Fonkoze Education agent.

The Business Skills class enables them to increase their profits and manage their businesses more successfully.

Boutik Sante (community health store)

Boutik Sante is Fonkoze’s innovative program bringing health products, services, and education to rural Haiti -- while introducing a new business opportunity to its nationwide network of microfinance clients.

As a social enterprise, the beauty of Boutik Sante is not only its impact on health outcomes but also that it will be self-sustaining by 2021, no longer requiring further investment.

Seventy-five percent of Haitians lack access to health products and services, particularly those living in rural and hard-to-reach areas. When available, medicines are prohibitively expensive, at three times the international market rate, and frequently of poor quality.

Accordingly, many Haitians only seek care and treatment when illnesses reach crisis-level. By then, an illness that may have been treated or avoided with a simple, over-the-counter medicine, has reached an acute and occasionally irreversible stage.

Community Health Training: Boutik Sante

Although the provision of many health services requires highly trained professionals, there is consensus that the delivery of a number of basic, essential health services can be shifted to community members who receive rapid, skills-based training with close supervision. Boutik Sante trains leaders in Fonkoze’s microfinance client network to become Community Health Entrepreneurs (CHEs).

A 2014 pilot program proved Boutik Sante to be both clinically effective -- improving health outcomes and increasing the use of health goods among 4,500 beneficiaries—and financially sustainable, with 20% profit margins for 69 CHEs within six months of operating. New to Haiti, this innovation draws on successful similar models that are being implemented worldwide.

In 2015, Boutik Sante launched its five-year scaling phase, supported by Healthy Entrepreneurs, its supply chain partner. Fonkoze is also working with the Haiti Ministry of Health to coordinate patient referrals.

By the end of 2016, Boutik Sante had 520 active CHEs. These CHEs have sold products and/or offered services to 122,221 individuals. If we consider an average household size of five, we can estimate that 611,105 individuals have had improved access to health products and/or services.

By 2020, Boutik Sante will have trained 1,800 CHEs, reaching over two million individuals in rural Haiti. One of the key aspects of this model is that, after initial start-up costs, sales of products and services will enable the program to be fully sustainable and perpetuated by the market itself.

Number of Patron Beneficiaries: 122,221 (as of December 2016).

Fonkoze has collaborated with researchers from Columbia University to monitor the program rollout to assess impacts on health outcomes. The primary success indicator will be the proportion of children under five years of age with morbidity due to diarrhea, fever and/or acute respiratory infection with a target of a 20% reduction. 

We believe that Adult Education and Training services are vital to our members’ success. Educational accompaniment is an integral program component of the first two Steps of Fonkoze’s Staircase Out of Poverty, Chemen Lavi Miyò and Ti Kredi.

But even Solidarity members are often lacking basic education. About 20% of women who enter the Solidarity program are illiterate.

They not only lack the ability to read and write, but also other skills that they might have gained in the classroom. These include numeracy and financial acumen, business management, leadership and decision-making skills. This impacts their ability to develop sustainable livelihoods and to recover from  shocks such as natural disasters, conflict and climactic variability.

Since 2000, over 132,000 clients have graduated from our Adult Education classes. Over the years, Fonkoze has developed and taught members to read and write; to better manage their business; to protect the rights of their children; to advocate for their own rights as women; and to understand how to protect the environment and prepare for disaster.

These women become leaders and agents of change in the communities in which they live. They also become much better at managing their business and thus can better provide for their families.

Combined with Fonkoze’s microcredit lending, the education program strengthens the capacity of Haitian market women to break the cycle of poverty and improve their lives and those of their children.

Fonkoze’s women’s education program offers three classes to our clients: Ti Koze (Little Chat, a monthly life skills and business skills class that engages participants in discussion and interaction), Alfa Bon (Basic Literacy), and Jesyon Biznis (Business Skills).

All three courses rely on the peer education philosophy of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. In coordination with Fonkoze’s microfinance branch offices (of which there are 45 throughout Haiti), the education team reaches clients through Fonkoze’s network of Centers and “Solidarity Groups.”