Inter-American Development Bank fund supports women entrepreneurship project in Haitian slums
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – A grant from the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) will help the Yéle Haiti Foundation establish a business support center to coach women who run cooking microenterprises known as “cuisines” in slums of Port-au-Prince.
Founded by Haitian musician and producer Wyclef Jean, Yéle enjoys strong legitimacy in the Haitian capital’s poorest neighborhoods, where it has carried out a diverse range of projects involving education, health, sanitation, sports and culture.
Yéle also has a proven record of fruitful partnerships, such as its work with Haitian NGO Bureau de Nutrition et du Développement, the UN’s World Food Program, mobile communication company Voilà and the Canadian International Development Agency, all of which supported a project to establish cuisines in Port-au-Prince slums such as Cité Soleil and Bel Air.
“Through this partnership we’ve been able to create a unique model of microenterprise, the Yéle Cuisines,” said Yéle Haiti President Maryse Pénette-Kedar. “Wyclef Jean and all of us at the foundation are thrilled with this new venture and look forward to working with IDB to open opportunities for thousands of women across Haiti,” she added.
The project backed by the MIF will strengthen Yéle’s capacity to promote entrepreneurship by providing training and assistance to the cuisine women and other people who want to start small businesses in their neighborhoods. Yéle’s business support center will be able to advise clients on preparing business plans, basic accounting, financial management and marketing.
At least 15 cuisines, which will provide direct employment for some 225 women and generate additional jobs in their communities, will be supported by the project. Additionally, the cuisines will establish a cooperative to centralize logistics and purchasing.
The MIF will contribute US$357,680 to the project while Yéle will provide the equivalent of US$153,000 in counterpart funds.
