Dorsilien has four children and one two-year old grandchild.  Their youngest child Jesunie became very sick and the family had to spend most of their money on her medical expenses. 

“The help we are getting now shows me that I really find my family in the church,” he said.  “I was forced out of the community where I was living because gangsters came to my house and beat me in my head.  They stole everything I had.  Our main work is farming, but as you know, depending on farming can cause you to die of hunger as you wait for crops to grow and mature.  With our micro loan money, we bought seeds but as we wait for seed to produce, we have the rice to eat.”

“I call each bag of rice a “savior”, because it is saving our lives and those of our children.”

If you have spent any time on our website in recent months, it is likely that you will have seen our project called, ”Dirt Cookies.”  Because of drastically escalating food prices in Haiti, many of the country’s poor have resorted to eating cookies made of dirt as a way to manage their hunger pains until other food can be found or purchased.  In response to this crisis, Bright Hope started a relief and development project aimed at helping some of the poorest people in Pignon, Haiti.  A micro-loan was provided to 280 families to pay for seeds and gardening tools.  It is our hope that within three months, the gardens will be producing food for consumption.  While families wait for their gardens to grow, they receive bags of rice to sustain and nourish them.   Little did we know how much hope a simple bag of rice could bring to a struggling family.  

Last month, important program activities took place at one of our projects in Samfya, Zambia. These trainings will greatly impact the community and lives of those who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Read on…

March has been a busy month in Samfya. In program activities, the project held two important trainings - a Loan Officer training and a Nutrition and Vegetable Production training for Home Base Care clients.

Micro Loan Program: In February the project leadership team met with Church Leaders in order to finalize the micro loan implementation manual. The training of the 22 Loan Officers took place during the second and third weeks of March. The Loan Officers were trained in a variety of topics including:

· Christian Leadership and discipling

· Root causes of poverty in the local region

· Solutions to local poverty

· Biblical view of poverty, work and investment

· The role of the micro loan officer

· Accounting and reporting

· Proposal writing

· Vegetable production

At this point in the Loan program, the Churches are opening bank accounts, and putting together their loan groups. In early April each of the 22 micro loan groups should begin to meet with the first loan disbursements going out by the end of April.

Home Based Care (HBC): One hundred twenty five Home Based Care clients took part in a four-day training that focused on nutritional management and vegetable production for HIV+ clients. Each client in the program will have the opportunity to take a $30 loan in order to start up a vegetable garden. The primary purpose of the garden is to improve household nutrition. A secondary purpose is to generate income for the family. At this point the Home Based Care clients have not been included with the larger Church-managed loan program. Once clients have been on the Home Based Care program for a year they will be referred to the Church-managed loan program. This process allows space for 125 newly diagnosed clients to receive support from the project in the following year.