Brooklyn Haitian women launch first feminist fund for the Caribbean | DOCUMENTED NY

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Haiti’s cascading crises have pushed millions into instability, but Haitian women — at home and across the Diaspora — are stepping in to fill gaps left by stalled political leadership and declining international engagement.

Since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti has had no elected government. Armed groups now control swaths of Port-au-Prince, displacing more than one million people and forcing many to flee. Earlier this year, the U.S. Agency for International Development froze new funds to Haiti, deepening an already severe shortage of humanitarian support. Families continue to face violence, hunger and the collapse of basic services such as health care and education.

Against that backdrop, Haitian women leaders in Brooklyn are launching a new model of response. This December, the Haitian Women’s Collective — a network of women-led organizations based in Brooklyn — is introducing the Fund for Haitian Women, the Caribbean’s first feminist fund designed to channel resources directly to women-led, grassroots groups in Haiti. The initiative is rooted in local leadership, gender justice and collaboration across the Haitian diaspora.

“We believe the issues are local, so the solutions are local,” said Carine Jocelyn, founder of the Collective. “We know that there are people within Haiti that can do the work but they are often not afforded a seat at the table where they can make a decision.”

The fund is the result of years of groundwork. Brooklyn’s Haitian community — long a cultural, economic and civic force in the borough — has mobilized to support the effort through organizing, fundraising and helping sustain connections between New York and Haiti.

Still, many Haitians in the United States are facing their own uncertainty. Increased immigration enforcement and ongoing questions about Temporary Protected Status renewals have placed roughly 348,000 people in legal limbo. Jocelyn said that reality underscores the importance of building systems of trust and empowerment that reach across borders.

“For us, it really is about local control of funding and that our partners have access to funds that are flexible for them because we trust them,” she said.

More than 15 organizations in Haiti are partnering with the Collective during the fund’s initial phase, including Profamil, which provides sexual and reproductive health services. As humanitarian needs grew, the organization expanded its services inside camps for displaced families, where girls and women face heightened risks.

“Our principal mandate is really to offer access to sexual and reproductive health, especially [for] women and girls and people who historically don’t have access to these kinds of services,” said Florence Jean-Louis Vorbe, Profamil’s executive director. She said many women still struggle to receive adequate maternal care, contraception and prevention methods for sexually transmitted diseases.

“With the kind of support that the Haitian Women’s Collective gives, we are able to respond to these kinds of needs because they really tailor what they do to the needs,” she said. “They do hear what women have to say on the field and respond directly to that.”

Jocelyn said Haitian-led and diaspora organizations are often excluded from major funding and policy conversations despite being closest to the communities affected.

“What happens is community-based, grassroots organizations, women who know their community — they are not part of the decision-making process,” she said. “They are not part of the decision-making process about what to do, how to do it, how to engage, how do we get to this point of success.”

The new fund seeks to shift that dynamic by providing grants for operations, programs or essential infrastructure — whatever local women identify as urgent. Groups will participate in a two-step process: submitting a request for proposal describing how the funds will be used, then completing a formal application. Only current partners of the Collective will be eligible during the first year.

“We’ve supported the development of a safe house. We did things with human rights defenders, giving them mental health group counseling support,” Jocelyn said. “We wanted to leverage that, raise more money for that, particularly as we are launching a more formal fund.”

For MarieYolaine Toms, CEO of Community2Community Haiti and one of the Collective’s founding partners, the initiative reflects a shared vision.

“Our vision is development with dignity. And our mission is creating self-sufficient communities by working with the community,” she said. “As a founding member, it was obvious that our work as women would be markedly increased if we worked together.”

Toms emphasized that Haiti does not need more nonprofits — it needs strong partnerships grounded in respect.

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