Ninaj Raoul

Co-founder and Community Organizer, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR)

Ninaj Raoul is a co-founder and community organizer at Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR) in New York, an organization founded in 1992 to respond to the human needs of Haitian refugees and immigrants in the U.S., fleeing persecution.  Through education, community organizing, leadership development and collective action, HWHR members empower themselves as they struggle for social, economic and racial justice.  HWHR conducts leadership and organizing trainings for the community where Haitian immigrants make global connections to their local realities.

Ninaj is a Petra Foundation Fellow, a recipient of the Union Square Awards, the National Organization of Woman – Susan B. Antony award and the Dr. Antonia Pantoja Bilingual Advocacy Award.  She continues to mobilize her community to deliver services, organize disaster relief efforts, and fight for workers’ rights from a woman’s perspective. She travels to and from Haiti, where HWHR has provided solidarity support to women-run organizations that respond to manmade and natural disasters. As a board member of Grassroots International, Ninaj seeks to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of the U.S. agricultural subsidy programs that dump excess crop in Haiti.