Founded in 1990 by a multinational group of young entrepreneurs, its aim is to promote employment in Haiti by training unskilled - but often highly gifted - labor, and by assisting the independent artisans through the introduction of new designs and new market outlets. Unemployment in Haiti, the poorest country of the American hemisphere, is variously estimated at between 60 and 80%...

The firm has gone through rough times during the recent years, marked by political troubles and economic difficulties including a 3-year long embargo on all Haitian exports, which proved fatal to many crafts exporters. Drexco, which saw in 1997 its premises totally ransacked and then destroyed in a "combat zone" where gangs outgunned the police, barely escaped that fate. Relocated in a higher-security Industrial park, it fought its way back: 400 artisans are currently employed, either as salaried employees or outside contractors, with roughly equal numbers of men and women.