Email us: news_mpmhaiti.org
Since 2005, MPMHaiti has been serving Haitians in need of assistance. Through solid programs of student sponsorship and new business support via microcredit loans, MPMHaiti is a trusted resource for Haitians in need. New initiatives are underway every day thanks to support from concerned humanitarians like you.
Learn More
Discover how our newest team of "Good Health Promotors" teach Haitians about water purification and sanitation.
Discover what MPMHaiti accomplished in 2011 and how 2012 will be brighter than ever.
Vega's Bar & Night Club in Sacramento is hosting an MPMHaiti fundraiser in April. Join Hooligan's Wake for good times!
Are you? Connect with MPMHaiti by friending us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and more.
School is in session. Learn how you can sponsor a Haitian child's education for the 2012 semester.
MPMHaiti works to keep administrative costs low. View our list of priority administrative needs today.
With a relatively small loan ($300US), one woman can start a business, repay her loan with a fair interest rate, and support her family.
Often the sole supporters of their families, these women are making great strides to better themselves and their families.
Why women?
Research around the world shows that women reinvest the most into their families and more consistently repay loans.
Which businesses?
Women in Haiti are creative with their businesses. MPMHaiti has sponsored women will all kinds of dreams:
- Consignment clothing shops
- Toiletries sales
- Sale of staple goods like rice, beans, cornmeal and spices
- Pork butchering
- Phone card sales
What kinds of loans?
MPMHaiti has sponsored loans to over 30 women in and around Les Cayes, Haiti since 2010. Women borrow at 3 percent monthly interest over 7 months and over half of our women have been so successful that they've reapplied for slightly larger loans.
Through the past few loan cycles, our Haitian staff has identified a need for more support for some of the women. Our five-woman disabled women's group has been such a successful borrowing group, that we are launching this model for all our new applicants.
In the future, a group of four to six women will apply as a unit but with personalized individual business plans to borrow around $1,250 in total and repay as a group at the same 3 percent interest over seven months.
MPMHaiti is proud to announce new methods of microlending like the Savor The Melody Small Business Fund. A dedicated and ongoing financier, Savor The Melody, is supporting new business initiatives in the Les Cayes area.
One of the foundational principles of MPMHaiti is self-sustainability.
In the spirit of true empowerment, we aim to make our organization the springboard as women work to be financially self-sustained and thus do what we all want to do - make their own decisions.
Donate nowto empower women in Haiti.
Cost: $300
Sponsor a share in a group loan in your family or business name
Donate
Education For A Better Haiti
No schools are free of cost in Haiti. Without publicly funded schools, private institutions require a substantial sum of money that too many Haitian families are unable to consistently afford. All schools require uniforms, books, writing utensils and other necessary schooling materials which all come at often prohibitive personal expense. Too often, over half of a class of students does not finish their education for lack of tuition alone. But with the support of MPMHaiti donors, we have an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of Haitian children and young adults, who are the future of all of Haiti.
The MPMHaiti In-Country Coordinatorvisits each school and each family, reporting on progress and recommending new needy students into the program. With the support of U.S. sponsors, we are able to finance a semester, year, or multiple years of education. When a sponsor can commit to a child's education, she or he has the rare experience of a promise of education. MPMHaiti donors currently sponsor 30 students from pre-K through high school, but not all have a yearly sponsor...yet.
$700 Keeps a child in school for an entire school year with books, uniforms, all necessary supplies, and the added final exam fees. This year of schooling can make all the difference in a young Haitian's life - the difference between literacy and illiteracy, between opportunity and few prospects. You can be the diference.
Donate now to sponsor a student in Haiti.
Sponsor Safara
Her future opens with education, but there's a prohibitive price of admission for her family. You can open this door for Safara. Why $700? Typical school costs: $450+ - Tuition - paid directly to schools (increases by grade) $100 - Uniform material and local tailoring, shoes, socks & underwear. No uniform or shoes = no school. $60 - School text and workbooks, notebooks and writing utensils. $30 - Exam fees: Essential for advancing grades. $20 - Transportation & misc. educational expenses. No money is given directly to the family, but rather judiciously used to ensure the child's schooling.
$700
Books!
Your donation to MPM Haiti goes directly to our In-Country Coordinator who purchases these supplies for students that the MPM Haiti Board of Directors has pin pointed as a child in need of supplemental educational funds, with great potential for success in school, and other characteristics collectively determined by the Board of Directors.
$50
Uniforms
In Haiti, tuition costs are not inclusive of the cost for a student to graduate. All students are required to have the proper uniform. This includes proper 'school shoes.' For lack of these material goods, many children sit home. You can make sure these children can proudly sport their colorfully-checkered symbols of advancement through education. Uniform a rising star student today!
$100
Exam fees
The whole year rests on these exams - and without proper fees there can be no report card. Students must maintain above average grades with MPMHaiti. Your support keeps them holding their heads high - all the way to graduation!
$30
Books
New or used school books are required each semester. On average, these essential supplies will cost XXX in Haiti.
Pencils
Writing utensils are essential to education. Purchase a pack of pencils today.
$10
Pencil Sharpeners
Keep those pencils sharp!
Pencil Cases
Haitian students like to keep their writing utensils neat and organized.
$15
Hand Sanitizer
Fear of cholera is dominating the thoughts of Haitians. Keep kids safe in the school setting by preventing the further spread of germs.
$25
Whether responding to disaster or proactively creating new programs, MPMHaiti's success comes from uncompromising models of partnership and empowerment.
MPM Haiti has heralded various empowerment initiatives to relieve Haitians in need through sustainable opportuntiy. Learn more in our "Initiatives" section or click on the icons below for details on all initiatives MPMHaiti has historically heralded..
CHECKOUT
MPMHaiti is partnering with a Disabled Womens group in Les Cayes. Led by the dynamic MariJo Pierre, five women in the group borrowed with MPMHaiti in a group model and each started or grew their own microloan-based business.
The group meets regularly among themselves and with the MPMHaiti Microcredit Team. They are fearless women overcoming not only physical challenges, but societal discrimination and underestimation.
Executive Director, Christen Parker (left), and In-Country Coordinator, Samuel Thidor (right), met with "Solidarite" to discuss their group loan progress, challenges, and ideas. The group's leader, MariJo Pierre (bottom right), is a fearless advocate for disabled rights, a gifted businesswoman, and law school hopeful.
Here is a sample from one woman's individual business profile for the Disabled Women's Group Application:
ISTWA MOUN DESABILITE (ANDIKAPE) NA - JUIN/JUILLET 2011
PERSONAL HISTORIES OF WOMEN IN THE DISABLED PERSONS GROUP APPLYING FOR MICROCREDIT LOANS WITH MPMHAITI
JUNE/JULY 2011
001 Haitian born in the South of Haiti in the Simon locale in Okay. She is 38 years old, born in 1973.
She has a son and lost her husband in 2004 in Port-au-Prince. She has sold chicken before and knows business. She pays for her son's school with what she earns.
Right now she cannot do any of that. She says she would like to enter the microcredit program with MPMHaiti so she can continue to have a business and sell chicken. This will help her continue to keep her son in school.
Her plan is to sell chicken. She would like to borrow $350 US.
001 es you Ayityenn ki fet nan kominn koto ki nan depatman sid.li abite nan lokalite simon nan komin okay,manze gen 38 lane li fet nan lane 1973. li gen you gason li pedi mari li depi an 2004 nan lakou potoprens ,li te konn vann pap padap ak poul lajan li te konn fe komes la li peye lekol tigason an avek li . men kounye a li pap fe anyen ,li di li ta renmen rantre nan pwogram miko kredi MPM nan ,men li di si nou komite MPM ta prete li lajan sa a edel kontinye fe bisnis pap padap la ak vann vyann poul la. sa a tap edel anpil ak lekol timoun nan. 1973 .li gen you tigason
plan bisnis li se pap padap ak vyann poul. li mande $ 350 US poul kontinye fe bisnis lan.
Creating a Sustainable Office
If you've ever been to Haiti, you know the frequent brown and black-outs that punctuate the day. It's not only harder to run an effective office, but costly to rely on this strobe-like service.
We recently purchased a 1600w inverter at a very modest price in the nearby Dominican Republic and currently use a small solar panal our In-Country Coordinator got in a trade for some masonry work. To really keep the lights on in Haiti, we would like purchase a larger solar panel for $880 US. But we'll need your help! The panel would essentially pay for itself in electricity bills in approximately10 months. Donate now contributing in part or whole of this project to save us administrative costs in the future and provide consistent power to these powerful projects.
Cooking with the Sun
With cautiously-expressed interest from a few program participants, MPMHaiti is piloting a solar cooker Sun Oven . This project is currently being tested with one of our Haitian women who we know would have potential to grow this project in the future.
From what we saw in Haiti, the Sun Oven is, thus far, a success. The rice we tested was delicious! Stay tuned for more updates as our Sun Oven Initiative progresses.
Do you have any solar oven experience or perhaps training materials in French (even better - Haitian Kreyol)? Please contact us - we would love your input.
Please donate nowto fund further research into our burgeoning solar efforts.
Solar Water Purification (SODIS system)
Free, easy, and readily accessible, purifying water with the sun has not only been proven effective all over the world, but also among MPMHaiti program participants - and office staff.
See our "Hygeine Program" for more information on how we are teaching solar water purification for the benefit of individual and family health.
Your support helps us train staff in this purification method, making Haiti a healthier place person by person.
A number of students were absent throughout the last school year for health-related issues - more than a few suffering from cholera.
While MPMHaiti is not a clinic and does not dispense professional healthcare, we can improve school attendance and family health by promoting good hygiene and sanitation.
MPMHaiti has employed two women and one man to conduct weekly home visits to families enrolled in our Education Program to observe, teach, record and encourage the following:
Annie Laws, who works with Grace Hill Settlement House in St. Louis, visited Les Cayes with MPMHaiti in August 2011, and will be acting as administrator the MPMHaiti Hygiene and Sanitation Program. She will also be pursuing grants for the program.
Would you like to help us grow this new initiative? We would love you on our team. You can also donate now to further promote our Hygiene and Sanitation Program in Haiti. You can help too by viewing our transportation needs in our "Administrative Needs" section.
Thousands in Haiti lost limbs to gangrene infection after injuries incurred in earthquake.
The Board of MPMHaiti is committed to seeing the timely rehabilitation and personal empowerment of amputees from the 2010 earthquake. We have and will continue to advocate for timely connection of those in need with what they need. That is our commitment.
Currently, Microcredit Loansfor small businesswomen is a major component of our advocacy, because we not only advocate vocally for the rehabilitation and integration of amputees, but we are providing concrete opportunity through microcredit loans.
Please donate nowto aid in the efforts.
30 students receive the education they would otherwise have been denied
30 women borrow and repay small loans with the MPMHaiti Microcredit Lending Program
5 women with disabilities started their own businesses by borrowing as a group
U.S. team members visit Haiti with Christen Parker
MPMHaiti Administrative Office rented in Les Cayes, Haiti
New MPMHaiti Public Health Education Program
1. Tell your boss about MPMHaiti. Your corporation or organization may offer matching donations. Send your boss to www.mpmahiti.org or contact us at news_mpmhaiti.org for ways to "pitch" MPMHaiti to your company.
2. I nvite friends to "like" MPMHaiti on Facebook. Good friends are happy to lend support what you support. Like us.
3. Donate your previously loved pickup truck. Dependable transportation is hard to find in Haiti, but if you have a good truck, well work with you and other donors to ship your generous gift to Port-au-Prince.
4. Offer small business start-up tips with Haitian businesswomen. MPMHaiti is compiling and translating supporter advice for women in our Microcredit Lending Program. Send your tips to news_mpmhaiti.org.
5. Investigate fundraising opportunities at your childs school. Haitian children deserve an education too. See if your kids are interested in sponsoring another young person's education in Haiti. Most schools offer simple fundraising ideas so that your child can help sponsor a Haitian students education for a year.
6. Ask your dentist to donate dental supplies. MPMHaiti is teaching good brushing techniques through our Hygiene Program and Good Health Promoters in Les Cayes. Your dentist may have a stash of toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, or even dental hygiene brochures/posters they can share. Help the whole world smile this year!
7. Throw a benefit concert for MPMHaiti. If youre musically inclined, MPMHaiti can help you find a venue in your area, supply donation information, and even help advertise your fun philanthropic event. One supporter in Mobile, Alabamathrew a fundraiser at his new bar and even held a small raffle for MPMHaiti. Another supporter in North Central Florida raised over $2,000 with a benefit at a local bar. Itll be the best gig you could give.
8. Make MPMHaiti your Birthday Wish. Birthdays come around every year and if you're our friend on Facebook, you can make us your Facebook birthday wish and ultimately make many wishes come true in Haiti. Check out our page.
9. Put MPMHaiti on your bridal gift registry. Spread the love. We already have two supporters getting married in 2012 who are naming MPMHaiti in their gift registry. Joyous events like these are a great time to let your friends and family give in the name of your love. Read how some of our earliest supporters made this beautiful gift.
10. Submit a solar-powered recipe. Through a new MPMHaiti Solar Power Initiative, Haitians are learning the cost-effective and sanitary method of cooking with the sun. Though our friends in rural Haiti may not have access to the same cooking staples and supplies, they would love to hear from you. Send a solar-powered recipe at news_mpmhaiti.org .
11. Give the gift only you could dream up. Do you have a gift or talent to share with the world? Let us know at news_mpmhaiti.org .
***12. Join the "2012 Solid Ground in Haiti Campaign"*** Together we can meet our goal of $15,000 in microcredit loans to women in Haiti. Our small business applicants are a stabilizing force for their families and local economy. Your investment creates solid ground in this shaken country. Get your club, church, synagogue, school, firm, or family on board and watch your investment stabilize women in Haiti.
On the 2nd anniversary of the earthquake that shook Haiti to the core, MPMHaiti is helping more families find solid ground.
Having successfully loaned funds to over 30 aspiring businesswomen in our Microcredit Program, we now aim to raise $15,000 by May 1st, 2012 to empower more women to start or grow their small businesses in the market of Les Cayes, Haiti.
Tell your family and friends that you too can have a share in the stability of Haiti.
Of course its important to respond to disaster, but its equally essential to proactively partner for disaster prevention and stability. MPMHaiti is the partner shareholders can trust to make the future brighter in Haiti.
Join the team and help us reach our goal as we work together to make Solid Ground Through Small Business for women in Haiti.
$2,500 finances a loan to a single prospective businesswoman
$500 funds a loan to a group of businesswomen working in tandem to
establish sustainable profit
$100 finances business courses to educate groups of businesswomen on how
best to manage and grow their new small business
$___ is your gift to contribute to the Solid Ground Through Small Business
campaign as a whole
Learn moreabout the Haitian women applying for microcredit through MPMHaiti.
In June 2010, Christen Parker, Executive Director of MPMHaiti, drove through Haitian capital city Port-au-Prince to witness the status of the capital and surrounding area six months after the devastating earthquakes.
Haitians still seem to be the strongest human beings we've ever been among. Life is still full amid the rubble, under tents, as best it can. Trash still covers the streets and rivers. Human beings deserve more.
We visited Port-au-Prince, Leogane, and TiGwav on our way to Les Cayes, where we have been working since January 2005.
This footage was our first look since the quake. Immediately after the major quakes, we were in medical tents and were not able to see the city.
The music is provided by our friends in Les Cayes.
Thank you for watching, for reading, for keeping Haiti in your heart. Help us empower people to have the opportunities they need and want for themselves and their families.
For only around $2 a day, you can put a deserving and motivated student through a full year of education.
Or, invest in a woman just waiting for the chance to support her family once and for all.
MPMHaiti is a partnership that prides itself on communication, accountability, and sound investment in real people.
Give now - safely and easily - through PayPal:
And remember! You can have your pledge renew and continue to support the work of MPMHaiti by clicking on the yellow button when donating.
Please let us know if you are donating in the name of a loved one and how we can reach them to let them know of your generosity.
Or send your check directly to:
MPMHaiti
PO Box 15013
Saint Louis, MO 63110
More information coming soon.
They looked at me like I was probably nuts as I explained the new game we were going to play. The women in the MPMHaiti Microcredit Lending Program are strong, beautiful, passionate small-business women who keep their eye on the bottom line while always looking toward the future - which is why, of course, they are borrowing with MPMHaiti. We had a full agenda but also time to play.
Traditionally, in Haiti, meetings are hierarchical and those attending are a passive audience - but not with MPMHaiti. In our Haitian-American partnership, we have spent the past six plus years blending cultures, sharing knowledge, and mutually growing.
We engaged our small businesswomen in an "ice-breaker" exercise I'd learned at the Clinica Ana Manganaro in Guarjila, El Salvador. Half the women sat in a circle and the other half stood behind them with their hands behind them. One chair was empty and the woman behind that chair had to convince someone seated to come sit in her chair by winking or lifting her eyebrows.
It's tricky because the women standing behind those seated dont want to let their person go. If they see her moving, they put their hands on her shoulder and she cant leave her seat. After the first few minutes of some confusion, the game was underway and it was FUN! Riotous laughter erupted from these serious women, and we were all part of the fun.
At the end we all caught our breath and talked about how there will always be people who want to keep us down, who say stay here, dont advance yourself, dont go anywhere, and its up to us to move with purpose and go where we know we are called. I will forever treasure this memory.
I experienced an uplifted Haiti this past month. There is something irresistible about Haiti, and seeing MPMHaiti making positive changes in the lives of previously disenfranchised people is incredible.
This summertime trip, MPMHaiti was fortunate enough to have four dedicated U.S. supporters along: Renee Payton, Bill Krekler, Christina Benjamin, and Annie Laws. I also had the opportunity to spend a few days in the Dominican Republic for the first time, visiting with fellow MPMHaiti Board Member, Laurie Stuchlik, and conducting a working retreat with our In-Country Coordinator, Samuel, along with our new Good Health Promotion Program advisor, Annie Laws.
I wish YOU could have been there with us. Youre always welcome to join us in our mission of Haitian empowerment. But in the meantime, read more about our New Initiatives and uncover all the progress that MPMHaiti is making thanks to your continued support.
With gratitude,
Christen E. Parker
MPMHaiti Executive Director
SAINT LOUIS, June 17, 2011
MPM Haiti supporters joined co-founders Christen Parker and Rodney Yarnal at Cafe Ventana in St. Louis, Mo. as they announced their relocation to California.
Donors enjoyed vibrant rhythms and smooth a capella tunes by jon.doe The PATHOLOGICAL Lyre in The Annex of Cafe Ventana. Everyone partook of the fantastic New Orleans-inspired cuisine that is the hallmark of Cafe Ventana.
Donors know MPM Haiti as global outreach initiative, and now we're expanding nationally with new headquarters in California. MPM Haiti will retain our satellite "office" in St. Louis, Mo. and we continue to utilize the broad national scope of MPM Haiti through the presence of Board members in New Orleans, La. and The Dominican Republic.
Thanks to all who came to say farewell to good friends, learn more about the future of MPM Haiti, and revel in the solidarity of like-minded philanthropists and activists for the empowerment of Haiti.
Special thanks goes out to Cafe Ventana and band members Legato White - Drums/Vocals, Mr. B. - Bass/Vocals, Blak Trax - Keys/Vocals, Ravie Lannik - Guitar/Keys/Vocal .
SAINT LOUIS, June 10, 2010 - Supporters from a local high school send shoes and love to Haiti.
St. Louis University High School (SLUH) held an annual benefit concert for Haiti raising over $1,000 in June, 2010.
Families collected shoes for adolescent earthquake victims to send back to Haiti with Executive Director Christen Parker on her next site visit to Les Cayes, Haiti. Ultimately, SLUH helped fill two large suitcases with generosity and love for our smallest brothers and sisters in Haiti.
SLUH hosted what has become an annual benefit concert for MPMHaiti. Thanks to the SLUH Pax Christi group, talented young bands, their fans and families raised over $1,000 to aid in the recvery of Haiti after the earthquakes of January 2010.
This was the second year in a row that SLUH hosted a musical benefit in support of MPMHaiti. Thanks, SLU High!
LES CAYES, July 10, 2011 - Driving through Port-au-Prince, Leogone, and Ti Gwav, MPMHaiti Executive Director Christen Parker, her father Pat Parker, In-Country Coordinator Samuel Thidor, and MPMHaiti friend Sam Jean Louis view the damage from the earthquake as well as the trash in a country without waste management.
Here are Christens reflections upon returning:
Reflections upon returning from Haiti June-July 2010
C. Parker
We ask ourselves, What will make it easier for people who live in Haiti to live their lives fully, with the foundations of physical and economic security, for themselves and their families?
Haiti's ability to literally rise from the rubble and live on astounds my comparatively frail sensibilities. People live around and sometimes on the rubble. They make home under tent and plug away at commerce, love, and life.
