Jessica Laporte
September 5, 2014
Last week we held 3 half days of training for new entrepreneurs in Cite Limye. After being stalled for a couple of weeks in the launching process, I was happy Wednesday to finally be underway again. Little did I know that we would have such a fun and animated group that by Friday I wouldn’t want the training to end.
On the first day we had 9 women attend the training, partially recruited by our informational session at the beginning of August, a few were invited by our manager and some even came from word-of-mouth. In the end, 6 graduated from the entrepreneur training and are out selling Gadyen Dlo in their community.
All of the 6 women now selling chlorine for Kouzin Dlo also participate in PENAH’s Manman Lide (Mother leaders) program, a group that equips mothers with education on pregnancy, birth, children’s health and nutrition. Through this group they are already familiar with educating peers on health related topics including WASH. Over the three days we were able to build on their existing experience and knowledge to prepare them to sell chlorine within our business.
One of the many strengths of the new site is our partnership with PENAH, a Haitian organization that has been working in Cite Limye for over 8 years. PENAH works with Malteser International to do Community Health mobilization through door-to-door outreach and focus groups. This presence in Cite Limye has educated the population about the importance of clean water and how to treat water. Now Kouzin Dlo is stepping up to provide a missing piece, consistent access to low-cost household water treatment. Our manager, Manouchka, is a leader in PENAH and is now putting her door-to-door outreach experience to work marketing for Kouzin Dlo.
One week since launching and we’ve already had entrepreneurs come back to buy more chlorine, completed 4 hours of door-to-door promotion and held our first weekly entrepreneur meeting. Not bad!
