In Haiti, food insecurity directly affects thousands of families and, in particular, children. For many children, access to sufficient and adequate food every day is not guaranteed.

In Fonds Parisien, Alianza Solidaria is involved in a project that aims to go beyond simply funding food. We could say that we are helping to set up a small ‘social enterprise’: a productive, not-for-profit activity, whose aim is to generate resources to support the feeding of the children at the school.

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The project began with 500 chickens. The income from the initial sales, as well as helping to feed the children, enabled reinvestment in new stock; and in this second phase, production has expanded to 1,000 chickens, moving towards a model of continuous breeding and sales cycles.

As with any business initiative, there is much more to a good idea than just funding: planning, monitoring, risk management, learning and the ability to make corrections. This same work is also part of the projects supported by Alianza Solidaria.

Management also means knowing when to stop

During the first phase, difficulties arose relating to feeding and managing the animals. Rather than automatically continuing with the planned schedule, the local team reviewed the process, made changes and waited to see the results before moving forward.

The adjustments worked and the project was able to continue.

In development cooperation, as in any organisation, a good project is not one where difficulties never arise, but one that has mechanisms in place to detect them, learn from them and make responsible decisions before continuing to grow.

Every donation helps to sustain the project and meet the children’s needs. But behind every project there is much more than just a transfer of funds: there is planning, monitoring, reviewing incidents and overseeing the use of resources.

Organisations providing support at this stage

The project has made progress, but the challenge now is to consolidate this new phase. To maintain the production of 1,000 chickens, resources are needed for feed, the costs associated with rearing, and the gradual expansion of the farm.

The aim is that, as production increases and stabilises, the business itself will be able to finance new cycles of rearing and sales and generate a profit margin to be allocated to the school’s nutritional programme.

As a company, your support can help during this consolidation phase.

There are various ways to do this: direct funding for the project, support for the infrastructure that enables it to run, in-kind contributions, professional services, publicity or partnerships linked to each company’s capabilities.

Because a company does not just contribute money. It can also contribute knowledge, experience, contacts and resources that help to strengthen an initiative whose ultimate aim remains the same: to help ensure that more children have access to adequate nutrition.

Join Alianza Solidaria's network of partner companies to receive information about projects and opportunities for collaboration.

Alianza Solidaria is a Spanish NGO with a clear Christian ethos that has been working for over three under the umbrella of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance.

This article was produced for the Líderes Empresariales section of Protestante Digital, an initiative of the Gospel, Economy and Business (Tres-E) group in Spain.