Eyes on the prize | Creating employment in Haiti

A year after the quake, do nonprofits still have cash for cash-for-work? (Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor)

Over the last month all eyes have been on actual and potential post-election violence in Haiti but there’s more than violence and frustration going on there (see below). Business happens in Haiti, too, but it’s a topic that won’t typically be reported on in the media–to the detriment of Haitian diaspora who’re either looking for sustainable ways to help their country or who want to magnify the impact of foreign aid.

Fact: investment opportunities exist in Haiti.  Business coverage can help to foster not only more of them but more open commercial transactions.  Fact: if there’s one word that the Haitians I talked to this summer repeated most often, it’s “job.”  Despite that, most of our media and community conversations in the US, even among the diaspora, center not on job creation but on charity–as if alms ever lifted any mass of people out of poverty.