Fewer than three out of 10 working-age Haitians are formally employed. Yet women and men—and many children—work as manual laborers, microproducers and market vendors in the informal sector.

Still, most in this predominantly agrarian society continue to work as farmers, tilling their land or that of large landowners for beans, vegetables or fruit. Others find work fishing the Caribbean waters or weaving straw baskets and other wares by hand.

They sell their products at sidewalk and roadside markets in both congested urban areas and harder-to-reach country villages.

Throughout Haiti, extended families pool their resources, and neighbors help one another when they can. The strong sense of community is rooted in history, in feelings of pride about being Haitian and in a deep desire for selfsufficiency despite economic hardship.