Programs: BrandAid Foundation
Announced:
August 9, 2010
Category:
Providing Small & Growing Businesses with Access to Financing & Business Services
Fund Amount: $48,000 Grant
Disbursed to Date: $48,000
Above, artisans create large numbers of vases,
to meet demand of vendors abroad.
See more in the BrandAid Photo Gallery.
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund awarded a $48,000 grant to BrandAid Foundation to help local artisans in Haiti who urgently needed assistance to stabilize their businesses. The Fund also enabled them to fulfill an important order from Macy’s, as a part of Macy’s exclusive "Heart of Haiti" collection.
Through the BrandAid grant, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and key partners helped rebuild artisan workshops in Jacmel that were destroyed by the earthquake. The project also funded short-term warehouse rental space in order to provide storage for production materials and finished handicraft products. Macy's "Heart of Haiti" collection is a 20,000 piece collection sold online at www.macys.com/haiti and in Macy's locations nationally.
One local artisan involved with this project, Gerard Dume, lost his workshop during the earthquake and had been living out of a tent in the ruins of his house and workshop. Despite these conditions, he still managed to deliver his order for this collection, thanks to the repairs.
Why We Invested in BrandAid
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's grant to BrandAid reflects our commitment to creating economic opportunity by restarting, creating, and expanding new small and growing businesses.
Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
- Reuilt nine ateliers, returning artisans to their workshops and their jobs.
- Collaborated with Aid to Artisans and Fairwinds Trading, two other Clinton Bush Haiti Fund grant recipients, aiding long-term development of the Haitian arts and crafts sector;
- Assisted artisans on multiple levels of the supply chain as they translated skills into successful businesses through branding, marketing, and distribution assistance.
- Increased global demand for Haitian crafts.
About the BrandAid Project
The BrandAid Project is a global initiative to provide world-class branding, marketing, and distribution support to artisans in developing countries. Its co-founder, Cameron Brohman, has lived and worked in Haiti for over 25 years. Jacmel, which was hit particularly hard by the earthquake, is a traditional center for Haitian papier-mâché crafts. BrandAid Foundation, in partnership with other organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the Association pour le Développement de l'Artisanat du Sud-est (ADASE) a Haitian NGO, seeks to brand Haitian crafts produced in Jacmel and the Croix de Bouquet section of Port-au-Prince under the name "Carnival Jacmel." Learn more about the BrandAid project at www.brandaidproject.com.
