Father Joseph

Father Joseph established Haiti’s largest micro-credit bank for the poor (Fonkoze), which has given literacy training and financial opportunity to hundreds of thousands of peasant women and their families. He also founded a 700-student K-14 school, an orphanage, a clean water project, a reforestation program, a health clinic, and a radio station; he has built dozens of homes, and he created the University of Fondwa, Haiti’s first rural college. Along the way, several of Father Joseph’s friends and colleagues were murdered because of their work for the poor. Almost all of Father Joseph’s 25 years of work was destroyed by the 2010 earthquake, but he is rebuilding with an inspiring humor and determination.