Haiti: From Crisis to Catalyst - Thursday, April 4, 2024
Speakers & Panelists
PANEL 1: REEXAMINING THE IMPACTS OF HAITIAN MIGRATION
Ernesto Castañeda is the Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, Founding Director of the Immigration Lab, and Graduate Program Director of the MA in Sociology, Research, and Practice. He conducts research on migration, urban issues, health disparities, marginalized populations, and social movements. He compares immigrant integration and ethnic political mobilization in the U.S. and Western Europe. Castañeda is the author of “A Place to Call Home: Immigrant Exclusion and Urban Belonging in New York, Paris, and Barcelona” (Stanford 2018), and “Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States” (Lexington 2019), editor of “Immigration and Categorical Inequality: Migration to the City and the Birth of Race and Ethnicity” (Routledge, 2018); co-editor with Cathy Lisa Schneider of “Collective Violence, Contentious Politics, and Social Change: A Charles Tilly Reader.” (Routledge 2017), and co-author with Charles Tilly and Lesley Wood of “Social Movements 1768–2018” (Routledge 2020).
Leonie M. Hermantin was born in Haiti and grew up in New York City. She has more than 20 years of grassroots community experience in Miami’s Haitian community.
From 1996 until 2008 Leonie worked in Miami, first as a Visiting Professor at FIU’s School of Architecture. She subsequently served as Executive Director of the Haitian-American Foundation (HAFI) a community agency. She went on the become Director of Research and Strategic Planning at the Haitian Neighborhood Center, Sant La. In 2008, Leonie’s sights turned to Haiti’s rural communities, and from 2018-2011, she served as the Deputy Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a Haitian-led community foundation, focusing on the needs of Haiti’s rural population.
In 2011 Leonie launched her consulting firm, Hermantin Consulting LLC, offering her the opportunity to work both in Haiti and the US. Hermantin Consulting provides services to the Children’s Trust, FOKAL, and FIU.
Since April 2019, Leonie returned to Sant La, as the Director of Development, Communications, and Strategic Planning where she focuses on fundraising, community building, and engagement.
Ms. Hermantin holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley as well as a master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning. She has served on multiple boards and currently sits on the Center for Haitian Studies’ Board of Directors. She is a proud and engaged member of Coral Gables Congregational Church UCC.
Guerline M. Jozef is a leading human rights advocate, thought leader, and strategist who dedicates her life to bringing awareness to issues that affect us all locally and globally, such as immigration, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and other human rights issues. Guerline is the Founder & Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the only Black-led, woman-led, Haitian-American-led organization serving migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border with offices in Tapachula, Tijuana, and San Diego focusing on people of African Descent in migration and beyond. She is the creator of “Tales from the Borderlands and beyond” as well as the co-founder of the Black Immigrants Bail Fund (BIBF) and the Co-Founder of the Cameroon Advocacy Network.
Ms. Jozef was named one of POLITICO’s 2021 40 Most Influential People on Race, Politics, and Policy in the United States for her leadership and is the recipient of prestigious awards—most recently, the Las Americas’ 2021 Border Heroes Award, the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the 2022 National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network Community Champion Award, the 2022 American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award, and was named one of the Haitian Times’ Newsmakers of 2022 and received the prestigious Dutty Boukman award. She has been featured in Forbes Magazine and has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Time Magazine, The Miami Herald, Democracy Now, and many other publications. Guerline has also testified in front of the United Nations, the United States Congress, and the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to demand the humane treatment of Black immigrants and all peoples of African descent.
She went to the Border for the Haitians but she stayed for everyone seeking safety and protection.
Frandley D. Julien handles a wide variety of cases in the areas of personal injury, immigration, wills & trusts, criminal defense, and family law. Frandley’s professional work is strongly informed by his personal experience as an immigrant who had to wade through uncharted territories to carve out his part of the American Dream. Similarly, he approaches each case as an opportunity to make a difference in the life of the client and puts all the resources of the firm to contribution to achieve that goal.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Florida International University’s Honors College. He was presented with the FIU English Department’s “Outstanding Achievements in English” award. He successively won First and Second Prizes in Essays at the Honors College’s Annual Convocation Contest. He obtained his law degree from that same institution and was presented with the “Outstanding Contribution to the Trial Team Award.” He is also a member of the Phi Theta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Tau Sigma fraternities.
Upon graduating from law school, Frandley worked as a prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, before opening his own practice in North Miami Beach. He speaks both Creole and French with native proficiency. In 2017, he published a book, Les Non-Dits de l’Affaire Guy Philippe, in which he explains the confluence of Haitian, American, and International laws through the international law concept of “extraordinary rendition”, taking as an example the apprehension in Haiti of a senator-elect by Haitian police, his subsequent transfer to the United States where he stood trial for conducts that occurred in Haiti.
Frandley is regularly on Haitian radio and television and has published numerous pieces in The Miami Herald, the Sun Sentinel, Jamaica Observer, and Haiti’s Le National, of which he is a partner.
Mr. Kurzban holds J.D. and M.A. Degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. with honors from Syracuse University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He is also an honorary fellow of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law where he was honored for his exemplified signal service to every aspect of the legal profession. He is also the recipient of the Wasserstein Fellowship at Harvard University Law School and was named the 2020 Recipient of the Leonard J. Theberge Award for Private International Law. Mr. Kurzban has been a founding partner in the law firm of Kurzban, Kurzban, Tetzeli, & Pratt P.A. of Miami, Florida for over 40 years and is the chair of the firm’s immigration department.
Mr. Kurzban is a past-national President and former General Counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He has received national recognition for his work in the immigration field. He has been named by the National Law Journal as one of the top twenty immigration lawyers in the United States; he has been listed for over a quarter century in the Best Lawyers in America for his work in immigration and employment law; and he has been listed repeatedly in Lawdragon as one of the top 500 lawyers in the United States. Mr. Kurzban was the first recipient of the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award presented by the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. He is also the recipient of the Lawyers of the Americas Award for his work on behalf of human rights in this hemisphere given by the University of Miami, the Jack Wasserman Award for excellence in federal litigation and the Edith Lowenstein Memorial Award for excellence in the advancement of immigration law given by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Carol King Award for his efforts in immigration law given by the National Lawyers Guild. In 1986 Mr. Kurzban was selected by Newsweek Magazine in their commemorative issue on the hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty as one of 100 American heroes for his work on behalf of immigrants. He was also selected by Esquire Magazine as part of America’s New Leadership Class. Mr. Kurzban has also been named to Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law and Who’s Who in the World. He was also named as one of the world’s twenty three most highly regarded corporate immigration lawyers in the International Who’s Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers and praised as a legend in the field who has written the definitive book on U.S. immigration law. Mr. Kurzban and the firm have been listed in Chambers as first tier lawyers in immigration law in 2021. For the past several years Mr. Kurzban has received Chambers highest ranking as a “star individual.”
Mr. Kurzban has also litigated over 100 federal cases concerning the rights of aliens, including Jean v. Nelson, Commissioner v. Jean, and McNary v Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., all of which he argued before the United States Supreme Court. He has also litigated numerous cases under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act, including obtaining a $500 million judgment against Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator Haiti.
Mr. Kurzban was also one of the founders of the Berkeley Law Foundation, a non-profit organization providing scholarships for law students and law graduates engaged in significant legal assistance programs throughout the United States. He is also one of the founders of Immigrants’ List, the first pro-immigrant political action committee in the United States.
Mr. Kurzban is an adjunct faculty member in Immigration and Nationality Law at the University of Miami School of Law and has lectured and published extensively in the field of immigration law, including articles in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia University Press, the San Diego Law Review and other publications. He is the author of Kurzban’s Immigration Law Sourcebook, the most widely used one-volume immigration source in the United States.
Born and raised in Haiti, Tessa has always had a passion for helping others. She moved to the United States in 2001 and worked in social services with the Haitian community and with families experiencing homelessness. While overseeing various shelters, Tessa observed that direct services address symptoms of inequality and that equity and justice will only be realized through structural transformation. She brought her passion for social justice to FLIC in 2016, where she helped to expand direct services in conjunction with issue-advocacy, capacity building and consciousness raising. Tessa has a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Barry University, and served our coalition as Director of Finance and Operations prior to becoming FLIC’s co-Executive Director in 2021. As she co-leads FLIC, Tessa aspires to foster collaboration among Black Immigrants, and to further expand FLIC’s civic engagement in a continuum.
PANEL 2: LOCAL POWER & INTERNATIONAL AID
Dr. Scott Freeman is an anthropologist whose work is at the intersection of the anthropology of the environment, critical development studies, and the anthropology of labor in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He conducts ethnographic research with agriculturalists and NGO workers in both countries. He is currently concerned with the bureaucracies of international aid projects, and how bureaucratic and financial procedures in international aid undermine conservation interventions. In the Dominican Republic, he has conducted research on the relationship between NGOs and coffee cooperatives. In Haiti, his research has covered the vetiver essential oil industry and soil conservation. On both sides of the island, Dr. Freeman is interested in understanding reciprocal agricultural labor practices as forms of counter plantation practice. His current work establishes a line of inquiry around aid projects and the regimes of labor that support them. This research examines the aid industry as a market for projects and theorizes the ways in which recipients of aid contribute valuable and uncompensated labor to the production successful projects.
Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. Jake Johnston has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University and an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. At CEPR his research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund and US foreign policy. He is the lead author for CEPR’s Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch blog and his articles and op-eds have been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, Le Monde Diplomatique, Boston Review, and Al Jazeera. His book, Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, is now available from St. Martin’s Press.
Hsu is a cultural anthropologist and solidarity activist currently based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but spent many years in Abricots. Her research informs her advocacy spanning various topics, but largely focused on the impact of the international on the local. Hsu’s recent research on ‘localization’ is included in the report ‘Localization: Views from Haiti’. Hsu worked with international colleagues and community leaders in Abricots to pilot, ‘The Guide to the Humanitarian System, Development Aid and NGOs’ intended to create transparency between NGOs and local communities. She is currently focused on engagement of urban crisis-affected communities and humanitarian organizations, while continuing to promote local knowledge production and action. Hsu sits on the advisory council of Roots of Development, a former Executive Committee member of the Lambi Fund, and a long-time friend of Gwoup Konbit/ Konbit Soley Leve.
Milostene Castin is an activist who coordinates the organization Action to Reforest and Defend the Environment (Action pour la Reforestation et la Défense de l’Environnement, AREDE) in Trou-du-Nord, a town in north-east Haiti.
Michèle Pierre-Louis served as the Prime Minister of Haiti from 2008 to 2009, and is the second woman to have held this position. Currently, she acts as the President of the Fondation Connaissance et Liberté – FOKAL and is the Director of the Reconstruction and Development Programme of the Open Society Institute in New York. She has also been working as a Professor at the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Quisqueya since 2004.
Louino ‘Robi’ Robillard is a Haitian national from Cite Soleil, a marginalized urban neighborhood in the capital city of Port au Prince. He is recognized as an expert in community-driven social change in Haiti and the application of Konbit to modern challenges. Robi has co-founded a number of social movements and organizations that use grassroots approaches to tackle diverse issues including community conflict reduction, urban resilience, youth empowerment, environmental conservation, humanitarian response, civic engagement, and health systems challenges (including Konbit Soley Leve, Konbit Bibliyotek Site Soley, and Gwoup Konbit). He is also the Program Director of Rasin Devlopman, which supports sustainable, locally led development on the island of La Gonave. Robi serves as an advisor to many other community organizations, NGOs, social enterprises, and socially responsible businesses. He has a Masters Degree in Community Change and Peacebuilding.
Before joining USAID as Senior Advisor for Localization in April 2022, Sarah Rose served as a Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Her work, as part of the Center’s US Development Policy Initiative, focused on US government aid effectiveness. Her work, as part of the Center’s US Development Policy Initiative, focused on US government aid effectiveness. Areas of research and analysis included US development policy in fragile states, the use of evaluation and evidence to inform programming and policy, the implementation of country ownership principles, the policies and operation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and aid transition processes. Previously, Rose worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Mozambique as a specialist in strategic information and monitoring and evaluation. She also worked at MCC, focusing on the agency’s country selection and eligibility processes. She holds a Masters degree in public policy and a BS in foreign service, both from Georgetown University.
Gunjan Veda is a public policy and international development executive with a background in gender policy. Gunjan is passionate about elevating the voices of grassroots leaders and is currently one of the leading advocates for Community-led Development, Locally-led Development and Decolonization. Gunjan began her career as a journalist, and subsequently worked with the Planning Commission of the Government of India, to evaluate and create policies around health, nutrition, marginalized communities, gender and child rights.
In 2009, Gunjan founded INDIAreads.com, an online library and bookstore to ensure access to books for people in the remotest corners of India. A few years later, she worked with healthcare philanthropist and Co-Founder of iGate Corporation, Mr Sunil Wadhwani to set up a non-profit that identifies and supports healthcare entrepreneurs across India. Gunjan has authored many reports and newspaper articles and published two books: Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India, (with Syeda Hameed, Harper Collins, 2012) and the Museum of Broken Tea Cups (Sage-Yoda Press, 2020).
PANEL 3: PAST LESSONS FOR CURRENT INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT IN HAITI
Yamiche Alcindor is a Washington Correspondent for NBC News and the moderator for Washington Week, the Peabody Award-winning weekly news analysis series on PBS.
Yamiche covers the administration of President Biden as well as the impact of federal policies on communities across the country and issues at the intersection of race, culture and politics. Her reporting appears across NBC News and MSNBC platforms including, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, Morning Joe, Deadline: White House and Andrea Mitchell Reports, as well as on NBC News Now.
She was previously the White House Correspondent for PBS NewsHour, where she covered the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. She also covered the impact of the coronavirus pandemic including the virus’ disproportionate impact on black people and communities of color. In addition, she covered a range of issues including the effects of federal policies and rhetoric on vulnerable populations domestically and internationally, protests and police killings such as the murder of George Floyd, as well as the consequences of federal immigration policies.
Previously, Alcindor also worked as a national political reporter for The New York Times and a national breaking news reporter for USA Today.
Alcindor is the recipient of numerous awards including the Radio Television Digital News Association’s John F. Hogan Distinguished Service Award, International Women’s Media Foundation’s Gwen Ifill Award and the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage. She is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and was named the organization’s 2020 Journalist of the Year.
Alcindor earned a master’s degree in broadcast news and documentary filmmaking from New York University and a bachelor’s in English, government and African American studies from Georgetown University.
Monique Clesca is currently an international consultant after a career of more than 25 years specializing in high-level policy dialogue, human rights, youth and women programming, development, and crisis communication and writing. A feminist pro-democracy, pro-social justice activist, she is also a member of the Civil Society Commission to find a Haitian solution to the crisis and of Haiti Think Tank and a member of the Montana Agreement Monitoring Bureau.
Ms Clesca was appointed Representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Niger in 2012, after serving as its Regional Adviser for Africa in New York and Regional Advocacy and Communication Adviser for 22 Southern African countries. In Niger, she initiated and spearheaded a country-wide movement for the elimination of child marriage, a traditional practice entrenched in centuries-old ideas of protecting women, and “Illimin,” an adolescent girl empowerment initiative now adopted as a model for West African countries. She led her team to winning a WEBBY award for the series on Niger girls empowered against child marriage and to record resource mobilization for implementing the cooperation program. The President of Niger awarded her the country’s highest honor in the Niger Order of Merit, that of Commander in 2016.
She has been a trusted adviser of Traditional Chiefs in Niger and Heath and Population Ministers in various African countries, and leveraged well-known artists and top influencers for girls’ and women’s rights.
Ms. Clesca was a founding member of MC Conseils, a communication and special event firm that provided services to government, civil society, and international organizations in Haiti between 1996 and 2003. Previously, she served as Advocacy and Communication Officer for UNICEF Haiti from 1983 to 1996 and spearheaded the Convention on the Rights of Children campaign and a national network of media and journalists in favor of children.
She has been a speaker at the Yale Law School Human Rights Clinic, the Canada Parliament and a guest on Democracy Now, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR, Black News.
Ms. Clesca’s writing has appeared in major national and international newspapers and magazines, including Foreign Affairs, Americas Quarterly, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, Huffington Post, Le Nouvelliste, and Ayibopost. She has authored two books: a novel La Confession and a compilation of essays entitled Mosaiques and is currently writing her memoir Celebrating My Mysteries of her childhood under the Duvalier dictatorship. The French newspaper, L’Humanité, profiled her in 2015 and Le Nouvelliste in 2015 and 2016. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from Howard University and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University.
Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the first Black woman to represent Florida’s 20th congressional district, was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2023 to serve a second term.
Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick is honored to serve on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization. She is also the Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Task Force for the Democratic Women’s Caucus, a Co-Chair of the Haiti Caucus, and serves as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government from Howard University. In further pursuit of education, the Congresswoman also earned a Juris Doctorate from St. Thomas University.
While in office, Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick remains committed to tackling the growing housing crisis, inadequate access to quality health care, and lack of equitable opportunities throughout our district and country.
With a PhD in Development Sociology from Laval University (Quebec), Roberson Édouard is currently a professor at the same institution, teaching sociology and research methods. For over fifteen years, his research has focused on issues of exclusion, violence, competition among normative systems, and global governance across diverse geographical contexts, ranging from the Far North to the Global South.
Georges A. Fauriol is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); a fellow with the Caribbean Policy Consortium (CPC); and a member of the Think Tank Haiti (TTH) Steering Group, a partnership of Université Quisqueya in Haiti and the Inter-American Dialogue. He is also a senior advisor with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). He previously taught in Georgetown University’s democracy and governance graduate program. Dr. Fauriol retired in 2020 as vice president of grants, operations, and evaluation at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and also served from 2001 to 2010 as vice president of strategic planning, and senior vice president, at one of NED’s implementing institutes, the International Republican Institute.
Prior, Dr. Fauriol held a number of positions at CSIS, notably as director and senior fellow of the Americas Program. He previously was also the assistant to the chairman of the Center’s board of trustees. Fauriol also worked at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. He has extensive cross-regional democracy assistance experience, including missions in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America. He is widely published and has testified several times before U.S. congressional committees. He holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
Patrick Gaspard is the president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress and the chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Patrick Gaspard was a key figure in President Barack Obama’s administration and held a number of prominent positions during Obama’s two terms in office, including serving as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Africa in the second term.
From the fall 2011 until the spring 2013, Gaspard served as executive director of the Democratic National Committee, where he steered the national party’s role in reelecting the president and oversaw a $300 million budget and 500 staff.
From 2009 until 2011, he was assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Political Affairs. He also served as the associate director of personnel for the Obama transition and the national political director for the historic 2008 campaign.
Gaspard most recently served as the president of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), one of the largest private philanthropies in the world. He first joined the foundation as its global vice president, responsible for its regional programs across five continents and its global advocacy strategy in multiple world capitals. He quickly became president during his first year in OSF in 2017 and went on to serve in that role for four years. As president, he managed and set the strategy for a $1.4 billion dollar budget and a staff of 1,600.
During his tenure, he confronted significant threats to open societies around the globe, including the rise of authoritarian regimes and the spread of COVID-19 worldwide. In 2020, Gaspard conceptualized and stewarded Open Society’s urgent contribution of $200 million in investments to support essential workers and other communities hit hardest by COVID-19. He also shaped the foundation’s $220 million commitment to civil rights groups in the wake of the national reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd.
During his tenure as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, from 2013 to 2016, he led over 1,000 staff and an annual budget of more than $600 million from 29 different government agencies. Gaspard led the effort to redesign PEPFAR—the U.S. government’s HIV/AIDS initiative—to integrate it effectively into the South African health care system. He also successfully led the trade negotiations that led to an unprecedented 10-year renewal of the bilateral African Growth and Opportunity compact between the trading partners.
Gaspard was born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to Haitian parents. He grew up in New York City and had a long career there and nationally in organized labor, electoral politics, and public service. He started as a union organizer and rose to become executive vice president for politics and legislation of the Local 1199 branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest unions in the United States. He went on to serve as the national political director for the national organization and its 2 million members.
Gaspard attended Columbia University and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Columbia University and Bard College. He has also been awarded the Spingarn Medal, which is the highest honor bestowed by the NAACP.
Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. Jake Johnston has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University and an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. At CEPR his research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund, and US foreign policy.
He is the lead author for CEPR’s Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch blog and his articles and op-eds have been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, Le Monde Diplomatique, Boston Review, and Al Jazeera. His book, Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, is now available from St. Martin’s Press.
Jeffsky Poincy, born and raised in Haiti, has emerged as a Policy Specialist driven by a commitment to transformative change. His academic journey led him to Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy in the United States, where he earned a master’s degree in public policy and international development with a specialized focus on Governance. During his time at Duke, he also obtained a graduate certificate in Latin American Studies.
Before attending Duke, Jeffsky pursued his education in Moscow, Russia, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics management and a master’s degree in project management from the People’s University of Russia. In addition to his degrees, he earned various certifications in Geopolitics of Europe, Negotiation Mastery, Community Facilitation, and other valuable skills. He’s fluent in Haitian creole, French, English and Russian.
Currently based in Washington DC, Jeffsky serves as a Program Manager at PartnersGlobal, an international non-governmental organization with a global footprint. In this role, he collaborates
with local implementing partners and the Partners Network across Africa and Eastern Europe on
projects related to accountable governance, civil society strengthening, conflict transformation,
and peacebuilding.
Jeffsky brings over 7 years of multisectoral experience in economic development, strategic planning, program management, and policy development in Haiti. His professional background includes significant positions within the Haitian government, notably in the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and the Ministry of Tourism, where he served as a Public Investment Analyst and an Economic Development Advisor in the Ministry’s cabinet. In addition to his governmental roles, he worked with organizations in both the development and private sectors such as Plan International and Digicel Haiti.
An active advocate for Haiti, Jeffsky is a committed member of the Haitian anti-corruption organization “NouPapDomi.” His involvement extends to briefing Congress members and U.S. administration staff, and other stakeholders on Haiti matters, preparing NouPapDomi members for Congressional testimony, and representing the organization in high-level political spaces.
Jeffsky also regularly engages with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on key issues related to Haiti as a member of the “Haiti Working Group” under the Global Fragility Act. Beyond his professional pursuits, he finds joy in playing soccer, exploring new destinations, indulging in his favorite TV shows, and staying connected with the world through social media. Passionate about geopolitics, global politics, and international relations, Jeffsky considers himself a global citizen dedicated to helping shape a brighter future for Haiti