Fonkoze

The Founding

Nearly three decades ago, Haiti was a country in the midst of a struggle for freedom and equality. Its first democratically elected president was living in exile, and the country was ruled by a brutal military regime. The organised rural and urban poor — the hundreds of grassroots organisations that worked tirelessly in the late eighties and early nineties for democracy in Haiti — were especially the targets of repression. Thousands were killed during this time, and many more were living in hiding or constant fear of reprisal. This is the context of the founding of Fonkoze.

A group of leaders — led by Father Joseph Philippe, a Spiritan Priest and founder of the Peasant Association of Fondwa — envisioned a Haiti where individuals were not only given a chance at political democracy, but at economic democracy as well. They had confidence their president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, would soon be restored to power and the military regime would depart. Fr. Philippe recognized that the strong grassroots movement organized to bring about historic political change, could also be harnessed to bring about economic change on behalf of Haiti's poor.

His main concern was that, although the majority of poor people in Haiti now knew how to organize themselves politically, they knew nothing about how to organize themselves economically. Even though people might control who was president, they had no control over who ruled the economy. The poor were not allowed access to banks or to the financial services they needed to rebuild their lives and their country from the ground up.

If you were a poor peasant or “ti machann,” (woman street vendor), who had no collateral, small banking transaction sizes, and could not read or write, you were not welcome in commercial banks. A coffee cooperative, for example, could not get enough credit to buy and process coffee harvests for export and a ti machann could not get a small loan to restock her merchandise and increase the size of her business. The poor who had organised themselves to gain political power now needed to organize themselves to create a bank they could call their own.

In 1994, the founders of Fonkoze — some 32 grassroots leaders — drew up the official papers to launch their efforts, and in 1995 Fonkoze (Fondasyon Kole Zepòl, or the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Foundation) was officially recognised as a foundation under Haitian law.

The Creation of Fonkoze USA

In the spring of 1996, Fonkoze organized a conference in Miami to bring together micro-credit practitioners, Haitian-Americans, and Haiti advocates to discuss how Fonkoze should be launched. The meeting was held at and in attendance were representatives of many of the Haitian communities. One of the main topics of discussion at the conference was how to finance the work of Fonkoze. Some had argued that Fonkoze should finance its loans out of the savings people put on deposit with the Organisation — just like the banks do. But others argued that it would not be right to put poor people's savings at risk and that the demand for loans would inevitably be greater than the savings Fonkoze could mobilise.

Some of the guest speakers at the conference told participants about a similarly minded organisation providing micro-credit in that received funds for its loan portfolio through a partner organisation. The participants in the conference decided they could perhaps do the same, and Fonkoze was conceived.

In the fall of 1996, a board member of the Washington Office on Haiti — Leigh Carter — agreed to take the job as executive director of Fonkoze USA, and in January 1997 Fonkoze USA held its founding board meeting. Members of the Board included a few Haitians, but also Salvadorans, Mexicans, and African Americans. It included community organisers, lawyers, religious, professors, engineers, and bankers.