$3.5 Million in New Grants From Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to Create Jobs and Promote Economic Opportunities for Haitians

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (CBHF) today announced three new grants aimed at rebuilding lives and livelihoods in Haiti. 

These awards reflect the shared vision of founders Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for helping post-disaster Haiti build back better by rebuilding and growing the economy, creating jobs, and providing education and job training that allows young people to embrace economic opportunity.

Haiti Hope Project

The Haiti Hope Project is a five-year endeavor launched by The Coca-Cola Company, the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), TechnoServe, and local partners to improve the value chain for mangos, Haiti's second largest agricultural export. The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's catalytic grant of over $500,000 to TechnoServe will be used to benefit the initial group of up to 5,000 smallholder farmers and establish a business model for transforming the entire mango sector, ultimately benefiting 25,000 mango farming families.

UEH Science & Engineering School

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund is pledging $2.9 million to help restart and rebuild the Faculty of Science (or FDS, the School of Science and Engineering) at the Universite d'Etat d'Haiti (UEH).  $900,000 will go to CHF International to be used to build and equip transitional classrooms and labs, allowing the virtually destroyed school to return to educating the nation's scientists and engineers while a longer-term plan for rebuilding is developed. An additional $2 million is a challenge grant that will go toward rebuilding a permanent FDS. When additional funders come forward, the university's hope for a permanent new facility will become reality.

BrandAid Foundation

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund will give nearly $50,000 to the BrandAid Foundation to be used to repair artisan workshops and provide warehouse space in Jacmel. This will allow Jacmel artisans to resume production and exports, and help expose Haitian capabilities to a wider market. This project complements a prior grant of $380,000 to Aid to Artisans.

"In each grant we make, we seek to enhance Haiti's human potential," says Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's Vice President of Programs and Investments, Paul Altidor. "These funds help support jobs in two key sectors – crafts and agriculture. Plus, support for transitional facilities at UEH will provide future Haitian engineers and scientists with the free, quality education they will need to help Haiti build back better."

CBHF will help Haiti's reconstruction efforts by creating jobs and economic opportunity through:

• Supporting the restart, expansion and creation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, to which women are often key contributors;
• Empowering people and enterprises by helping them access the formal business sector;
• Promoting job creation, particularly jobs with a direct social benefit;
• Providing life skills and job training to people, especially youth, so they can embrace economic opportunity.

About the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (CBHF)

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded after Haiti's January 12, 2010 earthquake, when President Barack Obama asked Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to lead a major fundraising effort to assist the Haitian people. The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund primarily focuses on longer-term, sustainable economic reconstruction designed to help the people of Haiti rebuild by creating jobs and promoting economic opportunity.

To make a donation to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, visit www.ClintonBushHaitiFund.org or text the word "QUAKE" to 20222 to donate $10. This donation will be charged to your cell phone bill.

SOURCE Clinton Bush Haiti Fund