Overview:
Amid the grip of gangs throughout Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan space, the Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Basis presents a blueprint of hope by pairing healthcare and schooling. Past Cité Soleil the place its predominant hospital is situated, the CHF basis has been delivering life-saving providers, schooling, infrastructure improvement and jobs.
Lately, the morning commute in Port-au-Prince has turn out to be a gauntlet of hazard and uncertainty. Gunfire echoes by means of the streets, makeshift roadblocks disrupt site visitors and the specter of violence looms round each nook. But, amidst the chaos, Gérhiane Kareen Ulysse stays steadfast in her dedication to the hospital she manages by means of her basis, the Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Basis (CHFF). Based in Fontaine—a locality in Cité Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum—by her father Jose Ulysse in 1991, the hospital stands as a beacon of hope in a metropolis consumed by despair.
“My day by day journey to the Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine has been a willpower and dedication to serve essentially the most susceptible Haitians,” Gérhiane, who left all her comforts in america and returned residence just a few years in the past, informed The Haitian Occasions.
Like lots of her employees, she faces a day by day ordeal going to work, navigating a panorama the place hazard lurks at each flip. The once-familiar streets have lengthy turn out to be a battleground, managed by gangs who implement their rule with intimidation and brutality. Crossfire is a continuing menace and secure passage is rarely assured. But Gérhiane, the 34-year-old founder and government director of CHFF, continues to press on alongside her employees, pushed by a deep sense of responsibility and dedication to their sufferers.
“Why do I’m going?” she mentioned. “As a result of management means doing what you ask of others. And typically, the distinction CHFF makes is heartbreakingly private.”
“To be trusted is a larger praise than to be liked. Our group trusts us as a result of we present up.”
Gérhiane Kareen Ulysse, Founder and Government Director of Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Basis
As a mom herself, Gérhiane is aware of the stakes for households counting on CHFF’s care.
Certainly, earlier this yr, the muse responded to an pressing name a few boy who had by chance ingested acid from an unmarked bottle. His esophagus was severely broken, inflicting meals and liquid to leak into his chest cavity. Although CHFF couldn’t carry out the advanced surgical procedure required, they helped coordinate an emergency airlift to the College Hospital of Mirebalais, because of Hero Client Rescue.
“It’s one drop in an ocean,” Gérhiane mentioned in regards to the position CHFF performed in getting the boy to the right care website, “but it surely’s higher than nothing.”.
As gangs tighten their grip on almost 90% of Port-au-Prince and organizations flee, CHFF stays. The hospital continues delivering important care the place few others will.
“The challenges have been immense,” Gérhiane mentioned. “Nonetheless, my crew has refused to yield. Our providers have turn out to be the lifeline for a group underneath siege. Due to this fact, we can not abandon our position.”
The ethos of displaying up regardless of the percentages and excessive dangers defines CHFF’s affect in one in all Haiti’s most harmful neighborhoods. Over the previous three a long time, CHFF has not solely delivered high quality well being care in Cité Soleil and past but in addition continued the daunting process of attempting to remodel a number of Port-au-Prince slums right into a beacon of schooling, employment and infrastructure improvement.
A mannequin constructed on belief and transformation, says founder Jose Ulysse
In Cité Soleil, a densely populated slum of roughly 400,000 residents usually related to violence and poverty, CHFF runs on a modest $1.1 million funds—$1 million for hospital operations and $100,000 for its basis. The funding helps a full-service hospital, a technical faculty, improvement tasks and youth schooling partnerships.
The CHFF’s hospital operations lengthen past its Fontaine base by means of cell clinics in communities deemed unsafe by most different organizations as a result of insecurity. The establishment’s well being care, schooling and infrastructure improvement packages are supported by native and worldwide companions and donors, together with Haitian Ladies’s Collective, Excessive Calling Ministry, Hali-Brite, UNICEF, UNFPA and Meals for the Poor.
Past well being care and schooling, the muse not too long ago launched a group infrastructure mission to create jobs and sort out environmental points. One present effort—a drainage canal in a flood-prone space—goals to scale back flood danger, enhance sanitation and supply paid work for youth susceptible to gang recruitment.
“This isn’t nearly water administration — it’s about restoring dignity,” mentioned Gérhiane. “We’re creating jobs, educating new expertise and displaying the group what it seems to be like when funding is made of their future.”
On the hospital, 70% of employees come from the encompassing neighborhoods, turning CHFF into each a medical lifeline and a uncommon supply of secure employment for a lot of locally.
“The group acknowledges the worth of our presence and the providers we offer, together with the hospital,” mentioned Dr. Fabrice Salomon, a basic practitioner who has labored within the maternity ward for almost 5 years. He added that residents see CHFF as trusted allies invested of their well-being, which has fostered mutual respect and cooperation.
“We look after individuals with out discrimination, even gang members and their households,” Salomon informed The Haitian Occasions.
“If a gang member or a relative will get shot or sick, they know that they’ll come to the hospital with out hesitation. Our sacred mission is to avoid wasting lives.”
Salomon rejoices that such a community-driven mission continues to repay. Whilst bullets grounded planes at Port-au-Prince’s worldwide airport and compelled different healthcare services to shutter, the CHFF remained open — treating over 10,000 sufferers and offering about 13,000 vaccination doses to youngsters who had nowhere else to show in 2024.
“We keep open as a result of we’re wanted. We keep open as a result of that’s what our mission calls for,” mentioned a CHFF employees member who requested anonymity for privateness causes.
“No gangs on our payroll,” the founding father of the Hospital, Jose, informed The Haitian Occasions. However the query stays: What units the CHFF aside?
From the Chimè to 400 Mawozo, neighborhood gangs usually present fundamentals and safety, complicating efforts to abate violence
The establishment has rejected the apply of paying gangs for cover, regardless that some organizations and companies in Port-au-Prince have resorted to this as a way to proceed working, whereas others have closed within the face of gang terror and extortion.
“Our built-in strategy makes us totally different,” Jose mentioned. “We work along with the individuals locally and so they clearly perceive that we work for them. We wish to sign to others that sure issues are very difficult within the space. However, one thing remains to be attainable.”
A meals vendor and mom of six, who selected to remain nameless for her security, informed The Haitian Occasions she sees CHFF as a lifeline for the Cul-de-Sac Plain, providing important packages that steer native youth away from gangs.
“These initiatives play a significant position in diverting susceptible youth away from the attract of gang involvement, offering them with constructive options and alternatives for private improvement,” she mentioned.
“Our built-in strategy makes us totally different. We work along with the individuals locally and so they clearly perceive that we work for them.”
Jose Ulysse, Founding father of Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine
Onel François, founder and director of one of many few faculties nonetheless working within the space echoed the meals distributors’ feedback. “By addressing the underlying socioeconomic elements that contribute to gang recruitment, the CHFF actively fosters a safer and extra secure setting inside Cité Soleil, regardless of the world being deemed unsafe,” he mentioned.
François mentioned CHFF has helped rework the lives of many younger individuals in Cité Soleil. Two younger males he is aware of, each from deprived households, grew to become docs with assist from the muse. He added that dozens of younger girls accomplished nursing coaching and now work full time on the hospital, serving to meet important healthcare wants of their group.
Educating the subsequent technology
CHFF’s strategy to public well being consists of schooling as a core pillar. As of January 2025, over half a million of children are internally displaced in Haiti, with greater than 50% of them dropping entry to high school, rising their danger of becoming a member of gangs. In keeping with a June 2024 United Nations report, 30 to 50% of Haiti’s armed gangs are youngsters.
Certainly one of CHFF’s key schooling companions is Onel François, who moved to Cité Soleil from Gonave Island at age 17 with solely a fourth-grade schooling. He finally accomplished highschool, earned a university diploma in schooling, and based Ecole Mixte Petit Coeur de Jésus, a Ok-8 college in neighboring La Saline. CHFF helps his efforts with college clinics, diet packages and psychological well being providers to offer native youngsters a greater shot on the future.
“On daily basis a toddler is out of college is one other day they’re susceptible,” mentioned Gérhiane. “We’re working to alter that trajectory.”
The CHFF, in collaboration with P4H Global, a nonprofit group led by Haitian American philanthropist Bertrhude Albert, not too long ago distributed over 450 meals kits, diapers and child components to displaced households. The inspiration coupled the help distribution with emotional intelligence and monetary literacy workshops aimed toward fostering long-term resilience, reasonably than offering unconditional support.
“Distributions needs to be rewards for coaching,” mentioned native accomplice Daniel Tercier. “That method, individuals depart not solely with provides however with expertise.”
For Gérhiane, her basis’s work can be a direct problem to a lethal cycle of displacing individuals, slicing off their schooling, ready till youngsters are determined sufficient to affix gangs and utilizing these youngsters to displace much more individuals.
“We should remind Haiti’s youngsters that they’re valued, seen, and by no means forgotten,” she mentioned. “We will’t be the descendants of Dessalines and preserve asking for charity. We should construct our livelihoods.”
From the Chimè to 400 Mawozo, neighborhood gangs usually present fundamentals and safety, complicating efforts to abate violence
Amidst the turmoil and uncertainty that has plagued Haiti, the CHFF and its devoted crew stay hopeful. “Our unwavering dedication to the group has fostered a deep-seated belief, constructed on our constant presence and selfless service,” Salomon reiterated.
“Incomes belief is a far larger achievement than being liked,” Gérhiane mentioned. “Our staff, our sufferers, our group—they belief us implicitly as a result of we’re all the time there, serving them with out bias or discrimination.”
The CHFF’s work is way from accomplished. With a confirmed mannequin thriving in one in all Haiti’s hardest areas, the muse is now looking for companions to increase its operations, together with operating extra cell clinics, launching job-readiness workshops, and replicating its built-in strategy in different crisis-hit communities.
“Haiti is only one visionary chief away from reaching its full potential,” the CHFF government director reminded. “Till that chief emerges, we’ll proceed to construct—one hospital, one college, one drainage canal, one step at a time.”
Regardless of day by day obstacles, Gérhiane stays unwavering.
“Leaving Haiti has by no means been and can by no means be an possibility. I didn’t select this life; this life selected me,” Gérhiane mentioned. Her phrases carried the load of a life-altering resolution, as she left a well-paying job within the U.S. to return to Haiti and construct well being and hope in its most uncared for communities.