September 15th, 2008

Emergency plan in Haïti

4 hurricanes have just struck Haiti with full force... The first two passed over the southern part of the country, the last two the north – the entire country has been brought to a standstill. Aid groups are having difficulty reaching the areas that have been hit the hardest.
The current toll is at 600 dead, with the disaster affecting another 650,000 victims.

60% of the 4,500 micro-entrepreneurs that we support live in the areas hit by the hurricanes: in Cabaret, Cap Haïtien, and Port-au-Prince.

Many of them lost all or part of :

• their stock and professional equipment

• their personal possessions (mattresses, furniture, food, and, in some cases, pigs, goats, and chickens)

We must act quickly. We want to help "our" micro-entrepreneurs get their businesses going again as soon as possible. We are implementing the following emergency plan:

• allocation of a new loan at a subsidised interest rate to restart their businesses immediately

• rescheduling of the outstanding loan in order to minimise the burden of this debt

• writing off outstanding debts for those who have lost everything and would be unable to bounce back

But in Haiti, as elsewhere, we do not have the funding at our disposal to finance these emergency measures.

We need your help!

We cannot wait to implement this emergency plan.
We feel sure that we can rely on your generosity in this situation.

The micro-entrepreneurs in Cabaret, Cap Haïtien, and Port-au-Prince need us; they need you.

We greatly appreciate your donation on line.