Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM), “Pathway to a Better Life”. It is an outstanding program set up by our partner in Haiti, Fonkoze, with a 95% success rate in helping participants acquire the skills needed to emerge from poverty. Participating families are the poorest of the poor in Haiti. They are among what many now call the world’s “bottom billion” people, those living on less than $1.25 a day. And oh yes, there is also a $100,000 matching grant!
Father Robert Maloney writes to the Vincentian Family…
My very dear brothers and sisters,
I am writing today about an exciting project which we will be launching on the www.zafen.org website on Sept. 27th, as part of the celebration of St. Vincent’s feast. I think that you will find it very attractive.
The project’s name, in Creole, is Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM), “Pathway to a Better Life”. It is an outstanding program set up by our partner in Haiti, Fonkoze, with a 95% success rate in helping participants acquire the skills needed to emerge from poverty. Participating families are the poorest of the poor in Haiti. They are among what many now call the world’s “bottom billion” people, those living on less than $1.25 a day. The program lasts 18 months. It aims to:
- provide a very simple, but decent, home with good sanitary conditions (clean water and a latrine)
- get all the family’s children into school
- provide training in life skills that will enable the family to begin a small enterprise, and
- prepare the family to enter, if they wish, into a micro-credit program.
The cost of providing these services to a participating family over 18 months is $1,500. During the 90-day period beginning on Sept. 27th and ending just after Christmas, Zafèn will offer members of the Vincentian Family and others worldwide the opportunity to help finance CLM participants. To encourage online donors, we will offer $100,000 in matching funds.
If, for one reason or another, members of the Family are reluctant to donate online, they can send a check to:
Fr. Miles Heinen, C.M.
Vincentian Solidarity Office
500 E. Chelten Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19144-1296
The check should be made out to “Vincentian Solidarity Office” and in the memo donors should write: “CLM project”.
I am attaching a one-page description of the CLM program (FactSheet pdf), which you may want to distribute to interested persons and groups.
I hope that, through this matching-fund project, we can make a significant contribution to transforming the lives of a significant number of families living in dire poverty in Haiti.
Your brother in St. Vincent,
Robert P. Maloney, C.M.
Coordinator, Vincentian Family Board for the Haiti Project
For further background
BRAC is a development organization dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the poor to bring about change in their own lives. We were founded in Bangladesh in 1972 and over the course of our evolution, established ourselves as a pioneer in recognizing and tackling the many different realities of poverty.
- http://blog.bracusa.org/2010/04/article-on-fonkozes-work-in-haiti-on.html
- http://www.brac.net/content/where-we-work-usa
Fonkose annual report
- http://www.fonkoze.org/innews/fonkozenews/256-fonkoze-2010-spm-report-released.html
Tags: Chemen Lavi Miyò, CLM, Featured, Matching grant, Vincentian Family, Zafen
