Moderator
Jacqueline Charles
Recognized as "Haiti's Ambassador to the world” by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Jacqueline Charles is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Emmy-Award winning Caribbean correspondent at the Miami Herald with responsibility for Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean. She has also written extensively throughout her career about U.S. immigration issues and their impact on the Haitian community. Her most recent project, Cancer in Haiti, garnered several awards including the prestigious 2019 AACR June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism.
Born in the Turks and Caicos to a Haitian mother and raised by a Cuban-American stepfather in Miami's Overtown neighborhood, Charles began her journalism career as a 14-year-old Miami Herald intern.
After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her first overseas assignment—the return of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from exile—came shortly after. As Haiti correspondent, Charles covered the (second) return of Aristide, and was the first journalist to inform readers of his arrival to the island-nation.
Her reporting assignments have taken her throughout the Caribbean, including Cuba, as well as Liberia, Italy, Kenya and, most recently, Mexico, Canada and Chile to report on the plight of Haitian migrants.
Speakers
Guerline Jozef
Ms. Jozef is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, Inc. (HBA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for fair and humane immigration policies and provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian aid, deportation defense, and legal as well as social services, with a particular focus on black migrants from the Caribbean and Africa, the Haitian community, women & girls, LGBTQA+ individuals, and survivors of torture and other human rights abuses.
The organization works to elevate the issues that Black migrants are facing to build more solidarity and collective movement toward policy change. HBA often plays the role of first responder and works with various organizations and partners to provide culturally informed assistance including information about country conditions, translation and interpretation, communication with the families, and referrals to legal service providers.
Ms. Jozef is also the Co-Founder of the Black Immigrants Bail Fund, a national project of the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) and African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs (ABISA) with support of other Black-led organizations in response to the high bond given to Black migrants from the Caribbean and Africa.
Ms. Jozef has dedicated her life to bringing awareness to issues that affect us all locally and globally. For her leadership, she has been the recipient of prestigious awards including the Border Heroes Award 2021 and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award 2021.
Ninaj Raoul
Ninaj Raoul is a co-founder and Director at Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR) in New York, an organization founded in 1992 to respond to the human needs of Haitian refugees and immigrants in the U.S. fleeing persecution. Through education, community organizing, leadership development and collective action, she develops brave, culturally grounded healing spaces to engage in survivor-informed practices to face trauma and daily challenges. Her current work with HWHR involves local organizing and advocacy efforts for refugees, undocumented immigrant youth, TPS holders and survivors of violence to build power and resistance as part of a larger liberation movement. Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees was a plaintiff in the NAACP-LDF lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for its decision to rescind Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants.
For over 25 years, Ninaj has been centrally involved in various local and global social justice movements, particularly immigration, anti-police violence, workers’ rights, language justice, gender justice, youth leadership development, racial justice and sovereignty rights. Her work has included membership on boards including: Grassroots International, Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), Martin Baro Initiative, Petra Foundation, and New York Immigration Coalition. She is a Petra Foundation Fellow, a recipient of social justice awards including the Union Square Awards, the National Organization of Woman-Susan B. Anthony award, and the Dr. Antonia Pantoja Bilingual Advocacy Award, as well as several Haitian community awards. Ninaj continues to mobilize her community to deliver services and fight for workers’ rights from a woman’s perspective. She travels to and from Haiti, where HWHR has been providing solidarity support to women-run organizations to respond to man-made and natural disasters.
Born in the Turks and Caicos to a Haitian mother and raised by a Cuban-American stepfather in Miami's Overtown neighborhood, Charles began her journalism career as a 14-year-old Miami Herald intern.
After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her first overseas assignment—the return of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from exile—came shortly after. As Haiti correspondent, Charles covered the (second) return of Aristide, and was the first journalist to inform readers of his arrival to the island-nation.
Her reporting assignments have taken her throughout the Caribbean, including Cuba, as well as Liberia, Italy, Kenya and, most recently, Mexico, Canada and Chile to report on the plight of Haitian migrants.
Claire Gaulin
Claire Gaulin works for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti, where she coordinates IOM’s projects for the protection and assistance of migrants and internally displaced persons. Before this, she worked for three years for IOM in Niger, responsible for migrants’ return and reintegration assistance activities. Before that, she worked as Humanitarian Attachée at the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in Geneva. Claire holds two Master’s degrees in International Law and Politics.