Women empowering women
Cultural Capital Haiti is proud to partner with the Women's Association for the Development of Lafon –– known by their Creole acronym AFADLA –– to sustain and expand their women's community center in the rural region of Lafon, Haiti, a place for women and girls of all ages to access critical resources, empower themselves with knowledge, and build solidarity.
Located in the impoverished agricultural region of Lafon, just outside the city of Jacmel on Haiti's southern coast, the women's community center which AFADLA has created during these recent years of political and economic turmoil is a truly remarkable achievement. It is a place of safety and learning, mutual aid and accountability, solidarity and celebration, serving one of the most at-risk populations in our global society: Haiti's low-income women and girls.
It is not outsiders who have built this, but rather the women of Lafon themselves. We at Cultural Capital Haiti have simply partnered with them to find funding to augment initiatives they themselves have spearheaded. Ranging from arts and crafts for young girls to micro-credit programs for entrepreneurial women, from reproductive health clinics to agricultural revitalization for the surrounding community, the impact of AFADLA's work has been astounding.
Above: AFADLA's community center, one of the nicest and most secure buildings in the area, secured with funding from a generous donor though Cultural Capital Haiti
Up from humble beginnings
In 2017, AFADLA's founder Fabienne Lerine was employed by an American entrepreneur to manage a modest agricultural project in her hometown of Lafon. Still an undergraduate at Fondwa University –– a dozen towns and several mountains away –– she was faced with the dilemma of having to manage a large workforce while still attending to a full course load. In her capacity as a manager, Fabinne found that the root of too many of the labor issues with which she was faced involved sexism. Rather than backing down, she started hiring exclusively women. By the time she graduated in 2019 with a degree in agronomy and a full thirty acres under intensive production, she found that, surprisingly, she also had a movement on her hands. That movement became AFADLA.
As Francesca Faustine, a local AFADLA member whose college education was cut short by economic strife and who now finds purpose in AFADLA’s activities puts it, “Fabienne woke us up!”
Even by Haitian standards, Lafon is poor. The farm Fabienne established was the biggest organized source of employment the area had seen in many decades, and the ability of her all-female workforce to earn money was transformative. Freed from the silos of dependency and lack of purpose, they became self-aware of their collective agency and naturally looked to Fabienne for leadership. They inaugurated AFADLA in October 2019, and by end of the year they had organized toy drives, home economics seminars, and after-school activities for the children of the area. By the following year, AFADLA would conduct a census and host self-financed mobile clinics. This was the first time that many in the region would see a gynecologist, a urologist, a generalist, even a dentist, in all their lives.
On International Woman’s Day 2021, AFADLA joined the parade in the nearby city of Jacmel 500 women strong, dwarfing similar and more established organizations with urban populations to pull from. They marched to the hospital where corruption had left generators without fuel and patients dead. They marched in front of the social security office to ask that instead of making corrupt loans to politicians they make loans to women raising families. They marched to the courthouse and demanded that victims of sexual assault be taken seriously. And they were heard.
2022 saw successful iterations of their self-funded micro-finance initiative, TiPa or "Little Step." Pooling their resources, the women of AFADLA funded small business initiatives which helped dozens of women achieve financial independence, allowing them to participate in farmer's markets in town or expand their own agricultural production. Here are members of AFADLA (then called AFL) explaining the program and its impact:
In 2022 AFADLA also began offering an ongoing agronomy course to the young women of the community, providing free education in advanced sustainable agriculture techniques. Their recent successes have inspired myriad inquiries from young women in neighboring districts looking to follow AFADLA's example and start women’s associations of their own. So the women of Lafon have begun to strategize ways in which they can scale and replicate their success beyond the bounds of their community.
AFADLA reached out to Cultural Capital Haiti because they wanted help raising funds to rent and sustain a permanent home base for their activities –– so that they would no longer have to precariously borrow spaces and live out of their pocketbooks. We wholeheartedly agreed, and so funding the AFADLA center became our inaugural project. Together, we produced this interview where Fabienne explained the needs of her community –– and the good that would be realized by establishing a brick-and-mortar center for her organization –– with remarkable clarity:
Building on solid foundations
Since partnering with Cultural Capital Haiti and achieving their dream of securing a stable place to call home, the women of Lafon have grown their center into a thriving nexus for their community. At once a women’s shelter, day care, professional development office, athletic club, women's health clinic, adult education center, activist hub, and place of celebration, the AFADLA center is both figuratively and literally a beacon in the night for the future of Haiti’s women. You can read more about what it means to the community here.
In early 2024, due to another generous donation to Cultural Capital Haiti, AFADLA was able to install solar panels on their roof, becoming the only place that most of the women and girls in the area have reliable access to electricity. Though in the rest of the world electricity is something most people take for granted, in the Jacmel area there has been no functioning public power utility for years.
This solar power installation allows them to run electric fans during the day to provide comfort for women and girls taking classes, attending micro-credit meetings, or participating in community events. And in the evening, it allows them to continue operations when otherwise they would have to shut down. The girls now have access to computers, internet, and film screenings. And visiting medical professionals have reliable access to electricity to provide better care during free clinics.
In 2024, the women of Lafon have focused on expanding their course offerings for girls and young women, including dance, fashion design, sustainable agriculture and women's health. Here is AFADLA's dance instructor Chérubin Wisnette explaining the impact of her practice with the girls of Lafon:
And here is a public-service video that AFADLA created with their resident nurse and women's health teacher Kettia Michel for World AIDS Days:
Another thing that your donations have allowed them to do is to feed the children of their community. This had for a long time been something they saw as a pinch-point in their efforts to deliver education: children were coming to classes hungry. And with no extra funds to provide snacks for them, teachers saw that the children were having trouble concentrating on learning. Though we wish we could do more, this past year we have been happy to see the children enjoying healthy meals together while attending their classes, and we hope very much to be able to provide AFADLA with the means to scale up this aspect of their services in the coming year.
Above: Simple meals provided by AFADLA for the girls and young women who attend their classes. For many, this will be their only meal of the day.
This coming year, the women of Lafon are also hoping to make significant new capital improvements to their space, by renovating the upstairs rooms with bunk beds to accommodate visiting experts and provide more emergency shelter for women experiencing domestic abuse or other acute needs. They are also hoping to build a gazebo in their backyard in order to provide additional class space for young learners. You can download their detailed 2025 budget proposal (in Creole) here.
With your help, AFADLA will continue to write a bold new page in the history of the women of Lafon, and provide a shining example of what can be done –– by and for the Haitian people. Please consider supporting Cultural Capital Haiti in funding AFADLA's work. You can even designate your donation specifically to them by selecting "Women's Empowerment Project" under "Designation" on our Donation page.
