Carmel Bazin

Carmel is the mother of 7 children and 1 granddaughter. She currently lives with 5 of those children and her granddaughter in Carrefour. Life has been a challenge for Carmel. Her husband left the family when her youngest daughter was a baby, and she was faced with the nearly impossible task of raising 7 children as a single mother in her poverty stricken neighborhood. There were times when she had no money to buy food for her children, and for years she could only send her oldest children to school, but she never gave up. She is always fighting for the future of her children, and today her two oldest are now in college and her other children are in school.

While things have improved, she still struggles daily to find the money to get through. She has never in her life had the capital to start a business, so this loan of $1000 will give her such an opportunity for the first time. Her plan is to become what is called a pepé. A pepé is a wholesaler of basic household items. Her plan will be to regularly travel to the port of Miragoane where she can by low cost household items that are arriving from the United States so she can then sell them to small vendors in Carrefour. She will not setup a storefront but will instead stockpile products at her home using word of mouth to network in the neighborhood. This will result in a viable business with very low overhead.

Long term her dream is to setup her own restaurant. Her contract with EM is for 10 months after which she will hopefully have paid back the entire $1000. After this, she will continue the business and seek to save her profits for the startup of the restaurant. This will be the first time in her life that she is in a position to pursue a dream of her own and build a financially viable path for the future of her and her family.

Carmel is deeply committed to her Christian faith, and she is highly respected in her community. She is active in a local church, and she volunteers at various churches in the neighborhood. Just recently as a middle age woman she entered a theology course through her church and graduated. She is an excellent cook, and when EM teams used to work in Carrefour she was the head cook for the groups. We are convinced that with her influence and skills she could run a fabulous restaurant.