Developing Stories

This 4-minute film follows case workers in Haiti’s central plateau as they work with new members of a program to reach people living in extreme poverty. The program – Chemen Lavi Miyò or “Pathway to a Better Life” in Haitian creole – is testing a new approach to helping people living in extreme poverty to transition into a sustainable way of life. This highly structured and intensive program combines livelihoods and basic support with training and financial management so that at the end of just 18 months, participants will be equipped with the skills and a business plan to move themselves out of poverty.

“What we want to demonstrate,” says Anne Hastings, director of the program, is that there is a “proven, replicable, methodology for accompanying people as they struggle to make their way out of these conditions into a …decent standard of living.” She wants to scale up the program to reach every single village in Haiti, and to demonstrate to the world that “it isn’t rocket science to eliminate this kind of poverty… It doesn’t take a genius to implement this model. It just takes dedication to working with this population group.”