Our Story
The Mission
Haiti Made is united around quality products, dignified jobs, and economic sustainability in an effort to diminish the poverty cycles in Haiti and to join a real fight against the orphan and child slavery crisis in Haiti.
Haiti Made was born out of a deep desire to see the Haitian people empowered by sustainable and dignified employment as a part of a larger effort to promote economic growth and a fight to keep families together. More than half of Haiti’s people live on less than $2.50 US daily, and the orphan and child slavery crisis in the nation is largely fueled by a lack of economic opportunity. Job creation has proven to succeed where perpetual aid measures have failed. Employment means the provision, stability, and preservation of the family. One job created in Haiti often supports up to ten others in a household. Our hope is to see the Haitian people holding the keys to their own economic recovery, empowered to envision a brighter future.
Haiti Made was originally started under the Hands and Feet Project, a non-profit that has been doing incredible work in Haiti since 2004. Now a for-profit business since 2017, our top-down Haitian staff takes pride in crafting products of the highest quality, design, and functionality using leather sourced within Haiti. The Haiti Made team includes women who have been rescued from human trafficking, young men and women who have transitioned out of orphanage residential care, families seeking to provide for their children, and countless other local community members from Gressier and Grand-Goave who are from many different walks of life. Like most Haitian people, they are not looking for handouts. They are looking for a path to sustainable responsibility for their own economic future. A job fuels dreams and provides an economic engine for all to live and thrive, not just survive.
Haiti Made is committed to paying a living wage. Haiti Made team members make a living wage that is at least 2-3 times Haiti's minimum wage, and each team member has an equal opportunity to climb the ranks in the organization to become middle and upper managers. Haiti Made is Haitian-operated day-to-day and is also an equal opportunity organization licensed in Haiti that follows all Haitian government labor laws and regulations. We also follow and practice all other international manufacturing standards and regulations. All Haiti Made products have been tested and have passed environmental hazard and impact standards.
Our leather is old-world saddle grade leather, certified veg-tan, and finished with neatsfoot oil. Our leather is sourced from the Hawtan S.A tannery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Our partnership with Hawtan is one of many that helps support the 126 jobs at their leather tannery in Port-au-Prince. The cowhide supplied to Hawtan comes from certified grass-fed cows in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Iowa. Here at Haiti Made, we believe the leather says it all, with each "side" being special and unique, having a history, and carrying marks and character making up each handmade product.
The Products are handmade with love and prudence, each one its own unique art piece. Some Haiti Made products are made, start to finish, by one Haiti Made team member individually. Other Haiti Made products require a more collaborative production effort and thus have been touched and made with many different hands, each doing their part to get to the final product. Beautifully, handmade products, supporting jobs in Haiti.