Our Purpose
Caribbean Craft is dedicated to promoting the beauty of Haiti through the export of high quality artisan crafts. Caribbean Craft seeks to share the creative and positive aspects of Haiti with the world and works to build strong relationships between international buyers and artisans in Haiti. Caribbean Craft strives to create stable, sustainable incomes for individual artisans and grow business opportunities for isolated artisan communities throughout Haiti. Caribbean Craft also wants to continue to serve as a leader in recycling and waste reduction in Haiti, such as turning old steel drums and empty cement bags into unique, artisan crafts.
A Growing Company
Caribbean Craft was founded in 1990 in Haiti. Through all the hardships that fell on this country, Caribbean Craft continued growing, becoming in the end of the 90’s the main provider of Haitian handicrafts for the Caribbean islands’ tourist market. In 2006 Caribbean Craft became a woman owned company, and in 2009 was the first Haitian company to invest in a permanent showroom in Atlanta’s Americas Mart. This exposure to the American market introduced the company and its products to several important retailers like HomeGoods and Anthropologie. After the earthquake, even though Caribbean Craft lost its workshop, it managed to acquire new accounts like West Elm, Restoration Hardware, TOMS Shoes, Land of Nod, Crate and Barrel. Since 2011 our customer list covers the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel and most Caribbean Islands.
Corporate Social Responsibility
A strong commitment to social responsibility and environment.
Caribbean Craft supports Haitian artisans with fair wages, health and accident insurance, a pension system and interest free loans to meet their own needs when crises strike. In 2010, we trained and gave work to 1300 artisans for 3 months to make a paper maché and plastic bottle bracelet, in collaboration with World Vision. These artisans were recruited from 16 refugee camps around Port-au-Prince.Caribbean Craft is committed to providing a variety of assistance to its artisans. We began our feeding program immediately after the earthquake in February 2010, providing a free meal per day to 25 workers. By October, the program was touching 120 workers and fed over 300 artisans daily for several years. In 2011, with the help of the Clinton Foundation, West Elm and Prodev, we started a literacy program for our artisans and worker to learn to read. In 2014 we achieved our goal: 100% of our team knows how to read and write, whereas only 53% of the Haitian population is literate. Caribbean Craft strives to find ecological uses for recycled material. The renowned “oil drum art” is made from recycled steel drums; the trendy papier maché comes from empty cement bags and starch made from locally grown arrowroot.