Success Stories

One woman's hunger to make a better life for her children took her from selling rice by the roadside to running her own cafe.

Madame Fanfan is like most women you’d meet. She’s concerned about her family’s health and safety and is determined that her five children will have a better life. What’s different about her is that she lives in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere — Haiti — where political crises, natural disasters, poverty and disease are part of everyday life.

She used to sell rice on the side of the road to support herself and her children and worried every day about whether she would earn enough to put food on the table.

Determined to move beyond this hand-to-mouth existence, she took part in a program that helps the poorest of Haitian women start or improve their own small businesses — and things began to change. With a small loan and new confidence, she purchased a stall in a prime location in the market and diversified her wares to include flour, coffee, oil and other products. She also opened a small cafe and has plans to open an even larger one to serve the visitors who now come to her community since the new airport was built nearby.

For Madame Fanfan and others like her, this microenterprise program funded by the United States does much more than boost livelihoods. It gives people a real stake in something we all yearn for: a stable and hopeful future.