The story captured above is one example of CRWRC's partner Program for Training Diaconal Organizations (PWOFOD)'s response to the effects of the Haiti Earthquake. Read on to learn how CRWRC and Lunise Cerin Jules, Haiti Country Consultant, are continuing community development work through PWOFOD and other partners.
Lunise Cerin-Jules' new office may be in the heart of Port au Prince, but her own heart can’t be contained within the city’s boundaries and bustling streets.
She says she loves to work with CRWRC’s partners to reach beyond the city’s borders into the Haitian countryside, where so many communities were living in poverty even before the January 2010 earthquake and continue to struggle to meet their daily needs.
“I love to go where the challenges are and there are certainly challenges here in supporting rural development in Haiti,"says Lunise, who joined CRWRC last spring as a Country Consultant, and who most recently worked with the Ministry of National Education in Haiti as a consultant. “We want to reach the people who do not know there is hope.”
Lunise’s work takes her into both urban and rural settings working with multiple partners to help support local programs that promote literacy, leadership, education, health and microfinance projects.
She brings experience, dedication and compassion to her new role, with a Master’s degree in Economic Development and years of experience working with Haitian non-profits as well as the public administration.
“I worked in the economic development field for 18 years then decided to also get involved in formal education, where I have concentrated all my efforts for the past 10 years,” says Lunise, a proud mother of five grown children and grandmother of one. “When I found out about this position, I just knew it was a good match for me and in particular I love to work with people in microfinance and see where it can take them.”
One of the partners CRWRC works alongside is the Program for Training Diaconal Organizations (PWOFOD), and Lunise says she has met the people whose lives have been transformed by microfinance projects through PWOFOD.
“I like the fascinating story of this young man who in 2001 joined PWOFOD as a housekeeper for the office but who was still in primary school as a young adult,” says Lunise. “Through assistance he received from PWOFOD, he was able to finish school and is now a university student majoring in Business Management. With a loan from PWOFOD , he also started a small business.”
The loan was for the equivalent of CDN $125 and, thanks to his training and skills, the young man now owns a flourishing retail business that is supporting his wife – a theology student – and young son.
“We helped make a successful businessman of this person, and it is our hope that we can extend that same experience to many others as well,” says Lunise.