Client Profiles

Beatrice Leon—Fonkoze, Haiti

A single-mother of 6, Beatrice moved from the capital city of Porte-au-Prince 4 years ago because life was simply too expensive for her to support such a large family. Without a husband to help her raise and feed her children, Beatrice worked hard, first washing clothes for people, but when that wasn’t enough, selling her own belongings to feed a family of 6  just once a day. Life was, understandably, very difficult.

When asked about how she came to be involved with the CLM program, she told us of how she would walk into church, barefoot, and pray for someone to help her. It was soon after that CLM’s case managers first visited her and entered her into the ultra-poor program.

After the construction of a new home thanks to CLM (who provided most of the materials and the labor), Beatrice decided to add an extra room in order to fit all of her children comfortably. She has been taking money from her savings account with Fonkoze to buy the material and seems genuinely happy with the idea of paying her own way through.

An unfortunate example of this new-found independence was the death of her brother during the construction of her home. Her father was unable to pay for the services and everyone looked to her for help. She told us that she had purchased some boards to build doors for her home, but had a coffin built out of them instead.

Beatrice, along with raising goats, has started selling toiletries as a form of micro-commerce with initial help from CLM; she purchases her products in the city, Mirebalais, and sells them locally. Today, she can feed her children two, and sometimes three times a day, and will send two more to school this fall (she has 3 in school currently). When asked what she hopes for in the future, she says she’d like to see her business grow. As she explained, it is through micro-commerce that she can find the means to feed her family and send them to school.

Elianette Jerome- Boukankare—Fonkoze, Haiti

Elanette is 65 years old and lives in a remote region of the Central Plateau called Boukankare. With two daughters to look after, 14 and 5, and the price of food rising around the world, she struggles to feed her family and send her eldest to school; she will be starting the second grade this fall.

Up until a little over a year ago, she had been living under a mango tree not too far from the house she currently calls home. 11 years earlier she had contracted a sickness that had left her unable to use her hands or feet from the pain that she suffered; she could not walk or work to feed herself or her child, relying heavily on help from cousin’s living in the nearby city and the generosity of her neighbors who would bring her food to eat. She sold 4 horses to pay for medicine and shots from doctors, and while she is now able to work the fields, one can’t help but think that the high costs of healthcare in Haiti might have crippled her still.

Last year, in order to pay for the funeral of both her parents, Elanette was forced to sell her land under the mango tree and tear her home down. While she has rented out a nice piece of land nearby on which she has built a small 1-room home for her and her family (mostly mud and straw), she remains indebted to the land-owner.

Her life now, after 14 months in Fonkoze’s pilot CLM program, stands in stark contrast to the hopelessness she felt only a few years earlier. She received three goats from the program, and raising them well, she sold five to buy a healthy duck with six ducklings. They represent hope for her, a means of security against the unexpected. If there’s an emergency, or a drought, she can sell one of her goats and not have to worry about going without food.

The stipend she received from CLM, ~7USD per week for 8 months, she had been able to store away in a savings account with Fonkoze, and used the money to send her daughter to school for the first time last year.

She still buys her food on credit from a neighbor, and while she had been able to pay it off with help from her weekly stipend, she now hides in her home when the merchant comes by to collect. But, in all, life is much better. At harvest time, she rents a plot of land to work on and sells the corn, rice, and beans she picks partly to cover the rent, and the rest to help feed her children and pay for school. She has high hopes for the future, a substantial savings account, and a daughter with a bright future and a helpful hand; she wants to be a nurse when she grows up. Elanette only wishes she could find a cheaper way to feed her family, but acknowledges the free healthcare, asset transfers, and the current construction of a new home by CLM’s staff have helped her worry less about everything else.

Rumella—BRAC, Bangladesh

Rumella, 35, was one of the fortunate few in rural Bangladesh to be born into a relatively wealthy family. She has fallen a long way since. Misfortune first befell her shortly after marriage. She had to have a cesarean section for her first-born son. Unable to afford the operation, the couple took out a 13,000 taka ($191) 10-year loan with interest from her brother-in-law. When the couple, who had had another 4 kids since the first, was unable to fully pay the loan after 10 years, her husband did something devastatingly cruel: he sold the family's land to pay off the loan, pocketed the difference and vanished without a trace, abandoning Rumella and their five children (ages 10, 8, 3, and two 4 year-old twins).

Having little education and unable to perform day labor because of her children, Rumella entered a period of intense suffering. She moved to another village to live with her mother, where the entire household of six lives in a remarkably cramped (perhaps 10x15 feet) windowless space with only a single bed. She was scarcely helped by her family because her father’s wealth had been somehow squandered by her 8 siblings, but she got by on the support of one of her brothers. She was unable to feed her children properly, and had no access to health care. She applied for assistance from a government food-aid program, but was turned down when she was unable to pay a bribe. She was ashamed to ask for help from neighbors because she came from a formerly “elite” village family.

It was in this desperate state that BRAC found Rumella.  About six months after she was abandoned, she was selected for the TUP program. She was still undergoing training at the time of the interview, but she expected to receive one cow, along with capital for a microenterprise in which she made and sold woven bamboo products such as scoops, pots and baskets. She will also receive a 175 taka ($2.57) weekly subsidy for three months after the asset transfer. She has access to free BRAC health care facilities and both of her primary-school aged are attending a tuition-free BRAC school.

Rumella hopes to use the income generated by the cow and microenterprise to buy her own land and build a decent home for her family. She hopes to educate all of her children so they can become businessmen or service workers, and live in far greater comfort than she has. Her family’s situation at the time of the interview was still somewhat dire, but BRAC has at least given her hope.

Momena—BRAC, Bangladesh

Momena Khatum is an exceptionally frail woman of 55 that looks rather closer to 90. Her husband, who was the household’s only breadwinner, died eight years ago, leaving her with no means of support. She is the head of a household that includes one of her two daughters and three grandchildren attending a tuition-free BRAC primary school. Her daughter was suddenly rejected by her husband some time ago, forcing her and the children to move in with Momena. The household lives in an impossibly small house (approximately 10x12 feet) built by Momena’s brother in law, seemingly out of spare parts and scraps from other houses.

Having no education and no longer physically able to even perform maid duties, Momena relies on begging other villagers to survive. She says that one day’s begging usually results in 2-3 kilograms of rice (approximately $1.20-$1.70 worth)-just enough to usually feed the household twice a day with very little left over to sell for cash to meet other needs. In other words, she has zero cash-income. In addition, she says that the recent food crisis has made feeding the household even more difficult. Exacerbating the family’s misery, Momena’s daughter is once again pregnant from her husband, who is remarried but would still come by the household solely for sex. Momena’s daughter occasionally works as a maid servant, but because of her pregnancy she cannot work often, and Momena’s begging is, stunningly, the household’s main source of income. She applied for an assistance card from a government food-aid program, but was denied. A neighbor noted that only three cards were made available for an entire ward (or group of villages). Momena’s family members are not well off and unable to support her, but her brother in law does provide assistance when the household’s survival is gravely threatened. Momena also suffers from what she believes is a stomach ulcer, but obviously cannot afford any treatment.