Development programs often help a community advance, but leave behind the very poorest. These are precisely the people that Beyond Borders wants to reach.

To do so, we are inviting families, churches, and schools to invest in an approach proven to help the very poorest families lift themselves out of extreme poverty and stay out.

The Graduation Model is an asset-building approach pioneered in Bangladesh and first introduced to Haiti in 2008 by Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest micro-finance lender.

You can transform the life of a family in rural Haiti by sponsoring their participation in the Graduation Model.

In 18 months time, your sponsorship will ensure that a destitute and dependent family is able to live independently and with dignity, and keep their children living at home and enrolled in a quality, nearby school.

Here’s how it works:

To equip families to develop the means to provide for themselves, they receive two income-generating assets: either livestock to raise and breed, or funds to launch (or relaunch in some cases) a small business.

To ensure that each family succeeds in becoming economically independent, they receive:

• regular training on how to manage their new assets,
• help establishing a community-based savings account to use for future expenses, including emergencies,
• weekly coaching visits from a dedicated caseworker to reinforce skills, build confidence and prepare them to handle any challenges, and,
• access to healthcare to help keep the family healthy so they are able to keep working.

To continue to grow their new assets, each family will develop a business plan with the help of their caseworker during the remaining months of the program.

Your generous sponsorship makes it possible for families to learn small business skills so that they can earn a living, provide for themselves, and keep their children in school and at home, where they belong. 

Your sponsorship also supports weekly visits with family life coaches for families that focus on training and reinforcement of critical topics ranging from nutrition, to health and sanitation, to small business management, to animal husbandry.

• Health care before and after birth
• Sanitation and latrines
• Parasites
• Vitamins
• Vaccinations
• Signs and treatment of malnutrition

Having little or nothing to start with, your sponsorship allows families to work with a life coach to identify and track specific, achievable economic goals, such as developing savings to purchase and raise goats, or raising and selling piglets from a pregnant sow, for example, so that later they can invest in an animal of greater value, like a mule or a cow.