Grant Spotlight - Supporting Social Enterprise Development

HDI’s support enables local organizations to realize their own homegrown plans for taking their community forward. A good example is a grant make to GREDEL (Groupe de Réflexion pour le Développement Local), a nonprofit organization in southern Haiti.

GREDEL has developed a social enterprise that supports community cassava farmers to increase their incomes. With the help of a $15,000 grant from HDI, GREDEL purchased milling and cooking equipment and created a facility for producing cassava bread, a popular Haitian snack. GREDEL provides local farmers technical assistance to help increase their cassava production. It then purchases cassava from them, providing a market that gives farmers confidence that their investment in greater production will pay off. GREDEL also trained 139 local residents on how to use the facility’s equipment to produce cassava bread. The enterprise is now also a source of employment opportunities.

This is an example of how modest philanthropic resources in the hands of local community organizations to direct to their own poverty reduction and development plans can have meaningful impact on the lives of vulnerable Haitians, and one that is sustainable. This community is in the heart of the area in south Haiti devastated by the earthquake in 2021.