On the other hand, stony-hearts mistakenly surrender hope. They see Haiti — or Africa — as a bottomless pit, a perennial hell impervious to progress. That doesn’t match reality either.
So let me guide you to a village in the Haitian interior where I recently saw an aid program making a difference — by helping people help themselves. There are many variants of such programs around the world, but this one is run by Fonkoze, a peasant bank that is one of the most admired aid organizations in Haiti. It was founded by a local Catholic priest, the Rev. Joseph Philippe, who then recruited an American management consultant, Anne Hastings, to run it. Hastings went to Haiti for a temporary visit in 1995. She is still there.
On a hillside in central Haiti, I met Odecile Jean, a 35-year-old woman with five children, ages 5 to 15. When she entered the Fonkoze program, none of her children was in school, and she had no farm animals. The family lived day to day, surviving on odd jobs.
Yet after 13 months in the 18-month-long program, Jean beamed as she showed off her brand new cow, discussed her thriving lumber business and boasted that her children were all in school. Her husband, Lionel, hinted of ambitions for them to go to college.
This transformation began when the couple’s “caseworker,” a stern young Haitian named Pascale Joseph, insisted that the family start three separate businesses so as to have a reliable way of making a living. They discussed several possibilities and decided to focus on buying logs and sawing them into lumber. It’s hard work, but profitable.
The family also entered the livestock business, with a couple of goats, and the chicken industry, starting with four newborn chicks. Joseph helped them build pens and advised them on caring for the animals. He also helped them plant 15 mango trees so they could sell fruit in the market.
I asked Jean how her chicken eggs tasted, and she looked scandalized. “I’m not going to eat these eggs,” she said. “I’m going to use them to raise more chicks.”
Hastings beamed when she heard that. “She’s getting in the habit of reinvesting, which is good.”
In exchange for the help they receive, participants like Jean must show that they can save money and invest it wisely to grow their businesses. Participants also must send children to school and adopt family planning.
To reduce malnutrition, participants are obliged to feed their children at least two hot meals a day. My kids were with me on this trip to Haiti, and they looked with interest at Jean’s list of obligations posted on her door.
“Dad,” my 16-year-old son pointed out, “I don’t always get two hot meals a day.”
Whether in America or Haiti, poverty is sometimes linked to self-destructive behaviors that lock families into unending cycles of penury. Caseworkers shatter those cycles, partly by ensuring that earnings go to education rather than alcohol.
Joseph, the caseworker, explained: “I say, ‘Every day you go out and drink and smoke, that’s another day that your child can’t go to school or eat.’ ”
Granted, things don’t always work smoothly. In a different village, I met a 20-year-old single mother in the program who had let baby goats die of negligence, and who celebrated her first earnings by buying a makeup kit. But after hounding by the caseworker, the young woman has gotten the hang of supporting her children, and is exhilarated by new possibilities.
What Haiti needs above all these days is these kinds of livelihoods for its people, not just shipments of food and clothing. It’s hard to think of a charitable project that will be as beneficial as the Coca-Cola Co.’s decision to build up the mango juice industry in Haiti, supporting 25,000 farmers. The same is true of the move by South Korean garment companies to open factories in Haiti.
I strongly believe that we have a moral obligation to address extreme poverty around the world. But sometimes the best way to discharge that obligation isn’t charity in the old-fashioned sense of handouts, but rather helping people like Jean find their own ways to support their families.
Nicholas D. Kristof writes for The New York Times.
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