haiti sugar

If feels good to text 90999 and give $5.00 to Haiti right? I mean I did it. You are able to make a virtual transaction while not changing reality. Pretty nifty trick right?

Now, let me shift the paradigm on you. What if instead of looking at Haiti as a charity case, you treated the $5.00 not as a donation but as an economic decision. How?

Currently, Haiti’s gross domestic product (GDP) is $489 million dollars. The number one resource they export is sugar. Sugar is a mainstay in our diet. The only problem is, they export it as a raw good. The raw good gets transported to the western hemisphere and is then processed as a final product. Thus, Haiti gets pennies to the 100 dollars for the raw product and then a major corporation reaps billions in net profit. Does this sound familiar? Think back to the era of colonialism. But I digress.

What if instead a Haitian businessman is given a grant by either the Haitin communiy in America or by a micro-loan organization. This man can then go back and start a sugar processing plant in Haiti. He hires 1,000 Haitians to grow, process, and export the sugar to the western hemisphere. This Haitian sugar is then marketed in the United States for example as sugar made for and exported by Haitians. There would be a media blitz of a thousand Haitian mothers and fathers who work at this processing plan, where they are making $100.00 a day instead of $1.00 a day.

The sugar is carried by all the major stores. There is a slight markup on the sugar to take into account hte various expenses (including tarriff) that the Haitian sugar company would incur. Thus, instead of buying (insert major Sugar brand here) for $3.50 , you can by Haitian sugar for $5.00 instead.

See the paradigm got shifted right. Now you are no longer treating Haiti as a charity case but as a business transaction. You are now a consumer of Haiti instead of a donor. Now Hait’s GDP rises from $489 million to let’s say $10 billion a year. Haitians invest in roads, infrastructure, school, and most impotantly, they make studier houses and school, so that next time there is a magnitude 7.5 earthquak, only 2,000 people parish instead of 200,000. Haiti becomes the Japan of the Carribean in the process, Haiti liberates herself from Colonialism. You can apply this same logic to coffee (buna) in Ethiopia, oil in Nigeria, or Diamonds in Liberia…ect..

See how your $5.00 can make a difference if applied in a different mode?