WHY HOPEH WAS FOUNDED

Marline Olivier grew up in a small, destitute mountain village in Haiti called Baptiste, about 50 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.  Because of deplorable road conditions, traveling to and from the capital sometimes took days, making it almost impossible for the people in Baptiste to get the adequate medical care available only in the capital.  Many Haitian children died every year due to lack of proper medical attention. 

The only hope for the remote villages of Haiti then (and today) has been missionaries and humanitarians from the United States and other countries bringing medical relief and providing the necessary vaccines and basic medical and dental needs directly to destitute villages.  

Hoping to escape the widespread poverty, unemployment, and political strife in Haiti, Marline’s parents moved to the United States in 1984. At first, it was major culture shock for the family because their Haitian village had had  no electricity, no running water, no sewer system.  As she grew up in the abundance of America, Marline did not forget the hardships of Haitian life and realized she had been given a wonderful opportunity to help her people in Haiti.  She says, “I still cannot forget the painful memory of my childhood, so I long to help alleviate the relentless suffering, especially among the children, in the deprived villages of Haiti.”   HOPEH thus came into being.