Dear Friends of HWC
The Haitian Women’s Collective extends our warmest belated wishes for a Happy New Year and our deepest gratitude for your unwavering support. We look toward 2026 with great hope, fueled by the dedication of our partners and the unwavering commitment of supporters like you.
Continuing the Legacy of Haitian Women’s Leadership
For Haitian people, January holds significant meaning—it is the month we celebrate Haitian Independence on January 1st, a triumph of human rights and self-determination. A cherished tradition of this day is the eating of Soup Joumou (pumpkin soup), a dish once forbidden to enslaved people that now symbolizes hard-won freedom and sovereignty. Yet, the story of this revolution is incomplete without acknowledging the fierce, powerful leadership of Haitian women. They were not merely participants; they were strategic leaders who engaged in combat, espionage, spiritual guidance, and even wove the very fabric that would later become the Haitian flag.
We honor the legacy of women like:
- Victoria Montou (Gran Toya/Adbaraya Toya): Regarded as one of the founding mothers of the Republic of Haiti, she was a member of an all-female elite army in the African kingdom of Dahomey and personally trained Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
- Suzanne Bélair (Sanité Bélair): She served as a courageous officer in Toussaint Louverture’s army, fighting for freedom on the front lines.
- Cécile Fatiman: A mambo (Vodou priestess) whose spiritual leadership is believed to have been critical in forming the information networks that connected and mobilized the enslaved across the island.
- Catherine Flon: The seamstress who famously sewed the very first Haitian flag at the request of Dessalines, and who tirelessly nursed the sick and wounded after battles.
Today, and every day, we honor these women and the countless others who gave their lives to the liberation, safety, and dignity of Haiti.
HWC continues to honor that legacy of leadership, strength, courage, and vision through our support of the women-led organizations based in Haiti that we partner with.
Significant Milestones and Urgent Needs
Thanks to your generosity, 2025 was a year of significant milestones. Most notably, we launched the Fund for Haitian Women. This groundbreaking, community-led fund is a crucial step toward democratizing philanthropy, and a symbol of women once again taking Haiti’s future into their own hands. As a community-led, pooled-giving fund, it will provide multi-year, unrestricted, trust-based grants to women-led organizations dedicated to ensuring the safety, health, well-being, livelihoods, education, and dignity of women and girls in Haiti. To learn more about the Fund, you can watch the webinar here.
We also hosted a vital Wellness Retreat for our partners and, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, provided $20,000 in rapid-response funding to our on-the-ground partners to support relief efforts.
We welcomed three powerful new partner organizations, bringing our network of Haiti-based partners to 15:
- Reg Ayiti, which fights menstrual poverty and works to ensure access to feminine hygiene products.
- Institute of Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) is dedicated to addressing the root causes of injustice that undermine and impact basic human rights.
- Neges Foundation provides educational services and environmental safety in Léogâne, Haiti.
The Work Ahead: Invest in Women’s Leadership
While we celebrate these achievements, the urgency of our mission has never been greater. As Haiti continues to put itself back together after the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, which left behind destruction and death in Haiti and its neighbors in the Caribbean, existing inequalities and insecurity have been exacerbated, and disproportionately claim women and girls as its victims. Our partners on the ground have been instrumental in the relief and recovery efforts.
We are excited about the year ahead, which includes the inaugural grantmaking cycle for the Fund for Haitian Women, the first feminist fund in the Caribbean focused on women and girls in Haiti. The Fund’s significance lies in its community-led approach, which provides opportunities for learning, networking, and funding decisions to award trust-based general operating support grants to HWC partner organizations in Haiti.
Through the powerful work of HWC partners, there is hope for a safer, more dignified, and healthy future for women and girls, and everyone in Haiti. Great things happen when we let women lead.
There is a tremendous amount of work to be done, and your sustained engagement is critical. We urge you to support our collective movement today:
Join the Fund for Haitian Women: Become a member of the first community-led fund in the Caribbean by making a gift of at least $365 a year. This secures your position as a member of this groundbreaking fund and ensures you have a voice in where essential funding goes.
Make a One-Time Gift or Become a Monthly Supporter of HWC: Consistent, tax-deductible donations provide the stable funding required for long-term strategies and organizational health.
With great gratitude, we wish you a Happy New Year. We look forward to continuing the work we are so passionate about in 2026.
Sincerely,
The HWC Team
