Two micro-enterprises for the future.

Blog Dec. 27, 2011

Two micro-enterprises for the future.

We are very excited to welcome on our team three dynamic volunteers who will further Relief Team One’s mission in Haiti of Education for Employment to foster durable Empowerment towards positive change.

Michelle from Pennsylvania is a professional pastry chef who works at Talkeetna Lodge in Alaska during the summer.

Michelle has volunteered to come set up and teach cake making and decorating to 6 of the young adults currently living at the orphanage.  She will develop with them pastries that use ingredients found locally and that appeal to the local market. They will have an inexpensive line of daily offerings and more exclusive cake offerings for special occasions. She has been very busy selling her own confections to raise money for this venture.

Amy is  a professional cook and entrepreneur who will assist the current staff with cooking for the volunteers coming for the first two weeks of January but will also train a young man or woman to be the pastry business manager and help develop a marketing strategy.

In addition, we are delighted to have on board, David, IT expert from Loyola University Maryland who will set up a micro-lab (with lap-tops donated by the university) and will teach our crew and some of the older youngsters’ computer skills at various levels. He will also help the local marketing expert hired by RT1 to develop promotional material for the pastry shop.  This micro-lab will be used as a source of revenue for the orphanage as it provides document making and printing for the neighborhood.

These infrastructures for those two co-ops with adult mentorship will not only develop badly needed regular resources for the Foyer but also teach a trade and therefore give a future to some of the orphans.