Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-9-26,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-Y
Things do not always go as planned
December 2019
We had just inventoried the newest batch of 600+ Haitian baskets when the Woolsey Fire one week later burned our houses and all the baskets on Nov 9 2018. Based on the inventory we knew exactly how many baskets each of our 34 women had made. We used our insurance to pay our women in the Central Plateau of Haiti just a tad short of US$ 10,000 for the burned baskets. ProjectMedishare.org distributed the funds during 2019s to our women in the Central Plateau. However, the women are creating much better quality baskets, both in terms of design and looks but also in terms of craftmanship. Lots to look forward to in the future!
Light, Radio, and Cell Phone Chargers!
July 2017
If you have a no electricity you have no light and you can’t even charge your cell phone. So maybe this makes sense. They got solar charged lanterns with built-in USB ports to charge your cell phone and a built-in radio. Maybe not. This is not a gift or donation -all the women made baskets and dolls and a small part of the sales proceeds they earned was used to buy these things. (The big part, ~95%, of the money is still waiting to build corrugated metal roofs for them). Here is the solar lantern with light, radio and ports to charge your cell phone. It comes with cables to charge your phone! It’s a really really big deal -there are no stores within walking distance to buy cables to charge your phone. The lanterns cost $65 or so if you buy one in Haiti. We bought 34 lanterns for $31/each. Marie Charlene and ProjectMedishare bought the lanterns and distributed them to our women in June 2017.
34 happy campers -thanks to all the people who bought dolls and baskets our women created. All the lantern fun happened in the hamlet of La Hoye in Central Plateau of Haiti in June 2017.
MHS Zanmi Club Supports Women in Haiti!
January 2017
We made the Malibu Times on Jan 14 2017!!! Click here to read more about it!
Hurricane Matthew
October 2016
Natalie and I visited Haiti in June 2016. Our interpreter Butler Benoit had told her parents, Minister Jean Benoit and his wife Clairena about our Zanmi dolls and baskets. Butler’s parents run a church, school, community center and a clean water well in a small city called Port-a-Piment in southwest Haiti. Butler’s mother Clairene Benoit got interested in making baskets herself but she also introduced basket making to the women their church community center.
So it seemed to make a lot of sense to visit the Benoit family in Port-a-Piment by hitching rides from Port-au-Prince in buses, taxes and pickup trucks. What a riot for a trip.
It turned out that Butler had told his mother Clairene about what we do in another part of Haiti (in LaHoye in Central Plateau in Haiti, near the town of Thomonde) where we support 35 women with the Zanmi dolls and baskets they create for themselves.
Meanwhile Clairene had taught 31 other women in their church how to make these baskets. And they had been making baskets by themselves, based on what Butler his mother. The quality of the baskets was amazingly good -we look at the quality in terms of how sellable the baskets are outside of Haiti.
Things Helping Haiti 