PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Ralph Edmond was fighting to re-open his pharmaceuticals business that was damaged in the January 12 earthquake.He, his 82 employees, and their families were held up by a damaged $30,000 piece of production equipment that could not be replaced through Haitian channels. 1,800 miles away, in the science lab of a college near Lake Michigan, sat the very item they needed, gathering dust.
Hope College chemistry professor Mike Pikaart heard Edmond’s story during a conversation on post-earthquake business recovery in Haiti. In Edmond’s specific list of needs was a description for a high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) unit. Pikaart read the list and remembered that an extra HPLC unit, donated to the college by a company liquidating its assets six years ago, sat homeless in the chemistry department building.
Within half a day, Pikaart had the HPLC unit up and running. “I was amazed,” Pikaart says. “It’s got lots of valves and seals and pumps, but I put some solvent in there and started pumping it and it worked right off the bat. I was really pleased.”
But not as pleased as Edmond and his team were when they heard the news of the HPLC unit discovery. It wasn’t just cost that was a concern for Edmond. He says it would have taken months to search the market for a new unit.
“Being a part of an international business network is essential,” says Edmond, a Haitian pharmacist and businessman who followed his mother into the industry and co-founded Laboratoires Farmatrix in 1989, a manufacturer of nutritional and vitamin supplements, antacids, and cold remedies.
The connection between Edmond and Pikaart came through Partners Worldwide, which through its Haiti Business Recovery Initiative has been connecting businesspeople in Haiti and North America.
Through meeting a need that will impact the lives of 82 employees and their families, Pikaart gained a new understanding of Haiti.
“What many of us see on the news is people living under tarps and standing in line for food and water. But here is a company getting back into operation under an owner who employs over 80 people. That’s not any kind of handout from us to them. Those are jobs – real jobs,” says Pikaart, who has taught chemistry at Hope College for 10 years.
“Empowerment of the private sector is the most important thing to do for sustainable economic development,” adds Daniel Jean-Louis, Partners Worldwide’s partnership manager in Haiti. “Foreign aid, though well-intentioned, often substitutes the products or services a local business could provide.”
The HPLC unit arrived in Port-au-Prince this week. Shipping costs from Michigan to Miami, and then via boat to a city north of the Haitian capital, were covered by private donations made to the Haiti Business Recovery Initiative.
The unit arrives none too soon. Edmond says that many of his clients, including pharmacies, are going out of business. Other clinics and hospitals he supplied before the earthquake now operate on free donated medications. These donations are helping many people with short-term relief, but have the unintended long-term affect of pressuring businesses like his out of existence.
Edmond won’t let the pressure stop him. “Targeting the NGO market to purchase locally is the next step,” he says. His long-term plan has factored in a turbulent local economy, with an expectation that sales will remain at 35-40% of normal for the next six months at least.
Most of all, Edmond is driven by the belief that Haitians themselves can bring recovery to their nation. “If you want to help Haitians,” he says, “the most important thing you can do is ask a Haitian what they need.”
Pikaart agrees. “There’s hope there. Haitians are hardworking and inventive,” he says. “We have an opportunity to re-think things, to see the Haitian people and economy as something that can be improved from within.”
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To learn more about Ralph Edmond and business development in Haiti, check out My Business, My Mission by Timothy Stoner and Doug Seebeck, executive director of Partners Worldwide.
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Jacqueline Klamer is a communications associate with Partners Worldwide, a faith-based international business development organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Partners Worldwide provides small and medium enterprise support via partnerships, mentoring and training, access to capital, and advocacy in 20 countries.
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