About

Haiti is a country that everyone thinks they know. It’s the country with the last name: ‘Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere’. The images are the same: slums, poverty, disaster, and NGOs. But while those things exist, they are not the whole picture – and, let’s be honest, we all know that there is more than meets the eye about this country.

That’s why we’re here: to open up a few more windows into Port au Prince, Haiti, and beyond. Verite Sou Tanbou is written by Louino ‘Robi’ Robillard, an activist and community development worker raised in Cite Soleil, and Sabina Carlson Robillard, an American who has been living and working in Haiti for years. This blog will mostly chronicle the experiences and observations of Robi, and will be mostly written by Sabina as she is a native English speaker. But the mission and outlook of Verite Sou Tanbou is shared: to show parts of Haiti that many do not get to see. Some of these will be beautiful parts, and some of them ugly – we have no motive here but to reflect what we see.

Most of this blog will be based in Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, and more specifically in Cite Soleil, the ghetto on the edge of the capital where Robi was raised and still works. Our work in the countryside is chronicled in a sister blog, Fondasyon Ginen.