Depot will provide basic and business education courses and training for budding entrepreneurs
Orlando, Fla. – Funds2Orgs, a for-profit social enterprise that promotes micro-enterprises in developing nations through shoe drive fundraisers, will open its first shoe microenterprise training Depot in Port au Prince, Haiti on December 1, 2014 for budding entrepreneurs. It will serve as a training and education center, offering courses in math, reading, writing and basic business skills at no cost to the local participants. As part of the program, the Depot will offer purses, shoes, stuffed animals, cell phone chargers and clothing for these newly-trained microenterprise operators to resell.
Here’s the way it works: Funds2Orgs will finance the initial inventory for the individuals to be repaid on their replenishment order. Funds2Orgs maintains a team of local educators and trainers who are dedicated to the company’s community outreach efforts and management of the Depot. All of the Depot’s clients are required to attend classes and will be incentivized by being paid stipends and receiving discounts on their inventory purchases.
Funds2Orgs has been on the ground in Port au Prince since its inception and has several great success stories putting locals in business. Take Silvia, a micro-entrepreneur who now makes $60 a day through repurposing shoes. She used to make $2 a day. She has been selling gently worn, used shoes for several years, and is now able to support herself.
“We believe it is important to teach the entrepreneurial people of Haiti to fish versus giving them fish,” said Wayne Elsey, Founder and CEO of Funds2Orgs. “We want to make a sustainable difference by offering continuing education for the people we work with in Haiti, many of whom have an elementary school-level education.”
This isn’t Elsey’s first experience in Haiti. He has been involved in relief and redevelopment efforts in the country since the great earthquake of 2010, providing funds, goods, housing, training and helping take care of providing basic needs for a population in desperate need.
Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean, after the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Sadly, 80 percent of the population lives under the poverty line and 54 percent live in abject poverty. The average per capita income in Haiti is $480 per year, compared to $33,550 in the U.S. Education is also a major issue in the country where only 53 percent are able to read and write.
In the U.S., Funds2Orgs teaches schools, churches and other organizations how to raise funds and engage volunteers through hosting shoe drive fundraisers. Funds2Orgs pays these groups to collect gently worn, used and new shoes through donations from shoe drives. Funds2Orgs collects shoes from these shoe drives across the U.S. and internationally, which are then sold to entrepreneurs in developing nations for impoverished people to start, maintain and grow micro-enterprises.
In 2015 and 2016, Funds2Orgs has plans to open additional locations in Haiti, including Carrefour, Delmas and Petionville, as well as in Tanzania, Honduras, Bolivia and Guatemala.
