Churches

St. Angela's bulletin

A Plethora of Churches
There are fifty-two churches in Greater Boston serving Haitians. They are important spiritual centers for their parishioners that often have strong ties to Haiti. St. Angela’s Catholic Church, located right on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan, is a prominent example of a church serving Boston’s Haitians.   The parish includes 800 Haitians or 75 percent of the church’s total number of parishioners. Its pastor, Father Morin, lived in Haiti for forty years before being called back by the Archdiocese of Boston in 1992, in response to an overwhelming demand for a Creole-speaking priest. St. Angela’s is one of eleven Haitian Catholic churches in the metro area. While the Haitian-dominated parish does not provide direct social service assistance to the population, it has very close relations with the Haitian Multi-Service Center, affiliated with Catholic Charities. St. Angela’s is also twinned with the Haitian parish of Sainte Suzanne located east of Cap Haitien, in Haiti.

Another church of note within the Haitian community is the First Haitian Baptist Church, located on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury. This church, founded in 1969 by Pastor Laroche, who had arrived in the community the previous year, is located in an old synagogue. After thirty-three years, the church has a congregation of 850 members. Like St. Angela’s, it has strong ties to Haiti. Pastor Laroche and his congregation have built three schools and two large churches in northern Haiti. Also like St. Angela’s, the First Haitian Baptist Church does not provide direct social service assistance to recently arrived Haitians. Rather, it provides referral services to the many organizations in the area that offer services to the community.

Churches serving the needs of Haitian worshippers are located not only throughout the metro area, but beyond it. Soliny Vedrine, pastor of the Boston Missionary Baptist Church in Roxbury, is the Program Director for an alliance of Haitian Pastors in New England, an organization that helps priests and pastors coordinate activities for the Haitian population over the entire multi-state region. The great majority of the alliance members belong to churches in the Greater Boston area.

Cultural and Outreach Organizations
Boston’s Haitian-centric institutions have been assisting their constituents for 15-20 years. As a result, not only have they made impressive contributions to the well-being of the community, but also they have come to shoulder a major part of the responsibility for addressing the community’s evolving needs. The city’s public service officials express confidence that these organizations are up to this challenge based upon their experience in managing successive crises related to health and immigration issues. While there are too many Haitian organizations in Boston to present them all here, a few in positions of prominence are highlighted.

HAPHI HIV/AIDS quilt

Health The Center for Community Health Education and Research (CCHER) and the Haitian-American Public Health Initiative (HAPHI) are two principal public health organizations in the metro area. While CCHER focuses mainly on AIDS prevention, care and support services, HAPHI has a broader mandate to promote health and foster well-being within the Haitian community through education and prevention, advocacy, outreach and services.   The Executive Director of the HAPHI, Jean Marc Jean Baptiste, stresses the importance of the organization’s youth work, which features two after school programs at area middle schools. Even though CCHER is more of a research based organization and HAPHI takes a hands-on approach, the two organizations collaborate extensively on health issues. The Haitian Health Outreach Project (HHOP) is one of several organizations in Somerville and Cambridge that also address health issues.

Not only have Haitian organizations made impressive contributions to the well-being of the community, but also they have come to shoulder a major part of the responsibility for addressing the community’s evolving needs.

The Haitian Multi-Service Center (HMSC), run by Catholic Charities also provides health related services, but only as far as those activities fit into their mission of preparing and assisting immigrants in their social and economic self-sufficiency in America. The HMSA provides job skills training and computer training classes, English as a Second Language classes, day care and immigration services. It has a broad reach, serving approximately 4,000 from its headquarters in Mattapan.

Culture and Education
A prominent organization promoting the cultural heritage of Haiti and Haitian-Americans in the Boston region is Haitian-Americans United, Inc. (HAU). HAU’s stated mission is to improve the quality of life for Haitians in Massachusetts and Haiti through education, socio-economic empowerment and economic development. Recently it has organized events celebrating Haitian Flag Day and the Haitian-American Unity Parade. HAU has also set up a Toussaint Louverture Scholarship Fund for high achieving Haitian students.

AFAB staff, Carline Desir at far left

Organizations Serving Women
The Association of Haitian Women in Boston or Asosyasyon Fanm Ayisyen nan Boston (AFAB) not only caters to Haitian women and their issues, but also seeks to design pro-active strategies to prevent them. AFAB started out as a volunteer-based organization in 1988. Although it did not envisage an initial focus on domestic violence within the population, as AFAB identified its constituency’s needs, that one emerged as a priority. As Executive Director Carline Desir recalls, “We did not think that [domestic violence] was such an issue when we first started.” The subsequent demand for the organization’s intervention in this area, however, proved otherwise.  

AFAB fourteenth anniversary booklet

AFAB’s commitment to work on the troubling problem of domestic violence has continued since 1988. Among its major accomplishments has been the creation of the Haitian Roundtable on Domestic Violence. The Roundtable groups together such key community organizations as the CCHER, HAPHI, and HMSC. Significantly, the Roundtable has reached out to the male population, attempting to stop violence before it starts.

Despite its prominence in the field of domestic abuse, AFAB is far from just a one-issue organization. Its activities encompass all an array of issues effecting Haitian women’s lives. Examples of AFAB’s diverse programs are its young Haitian Women’s group, Ayiti Demen (Haiti Tomorrow), and its Home of Haitian Women in Massachusetts (KAFANM), an affordable housing project for low-income working families. These varied approaches to women’s issues reflect the thinking of its Executive Director who stresses that “AFAB is a social justice organization that has a grassroots approach to its work…. exemplified by the strong organizing component that is involved in all AFAB projects.”  

The HCS stands out as an organization that addresses a variety of issues of great concern to organizations – and individuals – throughout the Boston area

Equality and Justice
A number of Haitian organizations in the Boston area are involved in issues of equality and justice. Among them is the Haitian Coalition of Somerville (HCS), the largest organization in the Cambridge-Somerville area north of the Charles River. The HCS addresses a variety of issues of great concern to organizations – and individuals – not only in Cambridge-Somerville, but also throughout the Boston area, including those located in relatively distant Mattapan-Dorchester. While the HCS is involved with issues that span the community, it also must turn its attention to problems in its own backyard that are somewhat distinct from those faced by their associates in other neighborhoods. The Executive Director of the HCS, Franklin Dalembert, points out that Haitians in majority-black Mattapan are not subject to the same racism and discrimination as are Haitians in majority-white Somerville. The HCS therefore places greater emphasis on confronting issues of racial discrimination than most of its counter-part organizations elsewhere in the metropolitan area.

Haitian Media Outlets
No Lack of Choices! Haitians in the Boston area are treated to a variety of Haitian radio programs. A web site that offers a comprehensive listing of Haitian radio broadcasts throughout the United States lists ten in the Boston area - www.anselme.homestead.com/RADIO.html. Web sites such as this one, of course, expand choices in Haitian radio beyond the traditional boundaries dictated by wattage and antennae power, to enable Haitians not just in Boston, but everywhere, to feast their ears on Haitian music and news emanating from stations worldwide!

Tele Diaspora president, Yvon Alteon

A Boston-based telecommunication services company, Tele Diaspora, Inc. delivers a host of television and video services to Haitians in the cities and towns lining the Massachusetts Bay. According to its web site, Tele Diaspora has designed, developed, promoted and conducted educational and recreational programs to stimulate cultural, educational, social, economic and professional advancement for Boston’s Haitian community.

Haitians in Boston are also served by the print media by way of the Boston Haitian Reporter. The newspaper also sponsors a web site to reach out to the area’s immigrant population and others interested worldwide. Established in 2000 by William Dorcena, the free paper has established itself as the source for reliable news reporting and analysis.

Businesses, Entrepreneurs and Professionals

A variety of entrepreneurial activities have been highly successful in the Boston area.

Successful Start-ups
A variety of entrepreneurial activities established from within the Haitian population have been highly successful in the Boston area. Activities focusing on food services (catering and restaurants), money transfer, tax preparation, and financial management are among the most common enterprises attracting interest and sustaining success. This is not surprising considering the needs of any recently arrived and rapidly growing population. Haitian entrepreneurs have established businesses through the Boston metro region. It is from Mattapan to Dorchester, on both sides of Blue Hill Avenue, however, where they are located in greatest profusion.

Law, Health and Education
Many of the area’s earliest immigrants from Haiti were skilled professionals who went on to become locally prominent lawyers, doctors and educators. In increasing numbers, Haitian immigrants are working in the region’s health care system, particularly as nurses. One community leader suggests that a visit to any nursing home in the Boston area, would uncover the fact that 75 percent of those working there are Haitian. Other common areas of employment among Boston’s Haitians include office positions with the high-tech companies located along Route 128, as well as positions as teachers in the area’s elementary and high schools.

Finally, given that Boston is home to the largest concentration of colleges in America, many consider the metro area to be an important center of Haitian-American academia. Boston’s colleges and universities include a significant number of Haitian-American scholars on their faculties and staffs. A testament to the population’s participation in the higher education sector and its dedication to teaching and research is the fact that a nation-wide professional organization dedicated to scholarly work on Haiti and on Haitian-Americans, the Haitian Studies Association, (HSA) is housed at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.