Haiti Progress in Reach

By Donna Stokes

October 3, 2019

Last Updated: January 12, 2012

Roseline Jean Pierre in Cance, with cow.
Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee

Jessie Clairvil was 7 days old when she was tossed out of the third floor of a Port-au-Prince apartment building. By the time she was thrown into the hands of waiting neighbors, the third floor was more like a first floor, the two floors below having already collapsed.

A refrigerator was hurtling toward Jessie’s mother, Roseline Jean Pierre, when she jettisoned Jessie out of the building. Jessie’s 5-year-old sister made it out next, followed by Jean Pierre, who jumped just before the rest of the building collapsed into rubble, one of many destroyed during the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. The quake killed more than 316,000, according to the Haitian government.


“God saved me,” said Jean Pierre, sitting in a field in Cance, in rural western Haiti, a year and a half later.

Read the rest of Jean Pierre's story, including her new start in a Heifer dairy cow project, in the February 2012 issue of World Ark magazine, which mails to Heifer donors on Feb. 17.

The feature article details Heifer's $18.7 million Rural Entrepreneurs for Agricultural Cooperation in Haiti (REACH) project.

Also, project participants from across the country share their experiences with new and innovative ways to build sustainable agricultural income, including in ocean and lake fish farming, home rebuilding and dairy cattle projects.

Watch World Ark's online page for the new issue in February or request a print magazine by emailing worldark@list.heifer.org.

For the latests blog posts on Heifer Haiti projects, click here.