In Haitian popular wisdom, there is a proverb that says: “Piti piti, zwazo fè nich li,” which means: little by little, the bird builds its nest. This is, in essence, the message carried today by all the financial education initiatives multiplying across the country: patience, gradual accumulation, the virtue of the long term. The Governor of the Central Bank urges young people to manage their money. Radio stations broadcast programs on saving. Financial literacy workshops are flourishing.

But in everyday reality, another proverb asserts itself with the force of lived experience: “Lè manman pa la, ou tete grann,” in other words: when the mother is absent, you nurse from the grandmother. When the formal economy does not provide, when the banking system is out of reach, when jobs do not exist, people turn to what is available. And what is available, for hundreds of thousands of young Haitians, is a phone screen.