Oklahoma Standard Extends To Haiti

This month marks eight years since an earthquake rattled Haiti, killing countless people. Since then, a group of Oklahomans made it their mission to help the people of Haiti. A local nonprofit called Mission Direct Haiti invited News 9’s Tiffany Liou to see the country’s conditions.

Papitass Dervil Joseph is the executive director of Mission Direct Haiti. He is born and raised there. He is the local representative for the mission, working directly with the founder, Tijunia Hudson, from Oklahoma City.

The mission has focused its efforts on a village called Traveaux, near Cabaret. Traveaux is on a mountain, and has rough living conditions. Houses are made out of mud, tarp, tin, or any materials villagers could scrap up. It takes miles of hiking to get to a source of water or food.

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Papitass said many people moved to the mountains after the 7.0 earthquake to avoid flooding. They propped up tents, which was meant to be temporary. Yet, on the eighth anniversary of the quake, many are still living in the same conditions.

Mission Direct Haiti is based out of Oklahoma. The non-profit is granted a large property from the Haitian government to build necessities for the villagers of Traveaux. A church has already been put up. This brings hope to the villagers. They will walk miles to go to church multiple times a week.

Tijunia plans to build a hospital, school and technology center for the villagers also. Most importantly, she wants homes for every family. So far, Mission Direct Haiti has put up one home in Traveaux. Monetary donations were made from Oklahomans, but the actual home was built by Haitians. Tijunia believes in educating the people of Haiti and creating a “pay it forward” program where one family helps another, putting up one stable home at a time in Haiti.