All-American approach to helping Haiti: shop

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

All-American approach to helping Haiti: shop
By Moni Basu, CNN
April 30, 2010 4:57 p.m. EDT

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Mesh Gelman's button-down khaki shirt has turned two shades darker with sweat. But he is more concerned about who will sew the perfect placket on the knit polos he hopes to deliver to Beverly Hills Polo Club.

The ones that will carry a "made in Haiti" label.

On this sweltering April day, New York entrepreneur Gelman and his business partner, Elizabeth Brown, are making the rounds at Port-au-Prince garment factories, scoping out the potential.

Gelman's mission is simple in theory. He wants Americans to help earthquake-devastated Haiti the best way they know how: by shopping.

Buy a shirt made in a Haitian factory, he says. This way, a Haitian gets a much-needed income, and a once-thriving industry in this Caribbean nation can get a jump-start on a second life.

It's the mantra of former President Clinton, the special United Nations envoy to Haiti: jobs, not charity.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/04/30/haiti.textiles.business/index.html

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Article from February:

Haiti's elite sees business opportunities emerging from reconstruction

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign service
Monday, February 15, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Last month's earthquake battered Reginald Boulos's small empire, destroying one of his supermarkets, badly damaging a hotel and killing two workers at his car dealership.

But with foreign aid flowing and a sympathetic world watching, Boulos envisions a new Haiti: one focused on quickly creating jobs while purging its ruling class of the cronyism that helped make this one of the world's poorest countries.

"This is what the earthquake is today -- an opportunity, a huge opportunity," said Boulos, a brash 54-year-old former doctor who once worked in Haiti's most notorious slum. "I think we need to give the message that we are open for business. This is really a land of opportunities."

Haiti's elite -- a small, politically connected group as comfortable lobbying President René Préval as lawmakers in Washington -- is positioning itself for business opportunities emerging from their country's reconstruction. The textile industry in particular, which survived the temblor largely intact, is gearing up to add tens of thousands of jobs, thanks to U.S. legislation approved in 2008 that gives Haitian garments duty-free, quota-free access to the United States.

But for some Haitians, it is a cruel irony that a business community they consider clannish, corrupt and responsible for the country's backwardness could be spearheading efforts to jumpstart the economy.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021403322.html