By Lindsey Stanberry for Refinery29

It’s late afternoon in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, and things are winding down at Papillon Enterprise. In the dusty backyard, women and men sit on wooden stools and broken folding chairs, shaping and glazing clay beads, chatting idly in Haitian Creole. They’re making jewelry that will be sold in the U.S., and they’re paid just enough to cover food and shelter for their families and schooling for their children. Their monthly salaries aren’t much more than some New Yorkers might spend on a fancy evening out — but in a nation where roughly 60% of the population makes less than $2.44 a day, it’s a significant sum.

I think there is such a case for optimism about Haiti. And also really about what women can do when we’re truly unfettered.

In the next building over, women take care of the workers’ babies. The free child care is an essential part of the success of Papillon. U.S.-born Shelley Clay, who founded the small business in 2008, isn’t just focused on the present — employing the poorest Haitians, many of whom had never held a steady job before they started rolling beads. She also has her eye on the future — lifting up the next generation, teaching them to read and write, and giving them opportunities their parents could never imagine.

Why is it so difficult to earn a living wage in Haiti? The citizens of this small Caribbean nation struggled with high rates of poverty, illiteracy, spousal abuse, and mother and infant mortality long before a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the country on January 12, 2010. The former French colony has been independent for more than 200 years, but after decades of suffering under a brutal dictatorship, the nascent democracy is still striving to find its footing. Haitians lack access to even the most basic necessities like clean water, indoor plumbing, and electricity.