A Profile of Mildrède Béliard, CARE Haiti’s National Communications Officer
Sharing the stories of Haitians struggling in the aftermath of January’s earthquake is a crucial part of CARE’s work to help heal and rebuild the nation. The woman who leads the effort to bring that information to the world could easily write volumes about her own life.
Mildrède Béliard, 32, radiates an infectious energy that reveals her generous spirit and dedication to making a difference. The longtime journalist, most recently a press officer at Haiti’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs, joined CARE Haiti four months ago, shortly after the quake. She deeply believes in the mission. “It’s more than a job,” she says, beaming. “It’s a personal investment.”
Her duties include documenting CARE’s emergency response and long-term development programs in words and images, gathering personal histories to share with journalists and CARE supporters worldwide. She might find herself interviewing CARE staff as they set up an aid distribution; traveling to an isolated displaced-persons camp to photograph a reproductive health workshop; or accompanying a foreign camera crew as they film temporary housing construction.
The impact she’s making became clear as soon as she started at CARE. “My first striking experience was an interview with a teenager who had been raped,” she relates. Mildrède listened and comforted the young girl, whose resolve strengthened. Unlike most rape survivors, the girl decided to lodge a complaint in order to prevent other women from being victimized. Mildrède, in turn, felt encouraged in her own determination to fight for the future. “Being an active part helped me to start again, to regain confidence in myself. I am not alone.”
After her experiences during the earthquake, Mildrède could easily have given up hope. Her family home, which their widowed mother had struggled so long to provide, was destroyed. Mildrède spent many hours searching for survivors in the rubble of her neighborhood. At one point, she helped recover the body of her boss and mentor, the director general of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Her own losses mirrored those of the nation. The movement to build a more just society – one without discrimination and violence against women – suffered devastating blows. The earthquake claimed three of Haiti’s most prominent women’s leaders, including Myriam Merlet, an economist and celebrated feminist who headed up the Women’s Ministry from 2006 to 2008.
In fact, on the morning of Jan. 12, Mildrède met with Merlet, to discuss a video project designed to combat stereotypes about women. She remembers how passionately Merlet railed against pervasive stereotypes, how they foster violence against women and hamper their efforts to participate in politics. Hours later, Merlet died in the rubble.
Mildrède has responded by rededicating herself to improving the lives of women and girls in Haiti. She refuses to consider seeking a more comfortable life abroad. “Leaving the country when the situation is at its worst would be a betrayal. It’s in times like these that you learn what guts you have.”
Mildrède took to fighting early, following in the footsteps of her strong-willed parents. When she was 9 her father died, broken by a prison sentence for speaking out against the Duvalier régime. Their mother, left alone with eight children, was forced to sell her meager belongings to survive. Mildrède did her part: she studied hard, earning a scholarship to a prestigious school. The principal, taking her under her wing, offered the little girl’s mother a job in the school cafeteria.
“I am grateful to my mother. She did all she could to raise us; she fought to give us a proper education,” Mildrède says. “My mother taught us to love humanity. Even when we had no food, she would find some tiny bit for a starving neighbor. My mother never said a bad word about anybody.”
Mildrède made her first foray into journalism when she was 13, hosting a radio show. At 16, she began to teach children bound in domestic servitude, a troubling social phenomenon in Haiti. She went on to other jobs in the social field, including working to reduce teen pregnancy and educate youth about HIV and AIDS. She encouraged young people to read while she pursued her own journalism studies.
At the age of 27 she moved to Port-au-Prince, working in television before joining the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. By then she had taken charge of her own family, seeing to it that all her brothers and sisters would get an education.
Mildrède never feels regrets about those difficult years, when “we were hungry, starving – and then we would be singing, putting on a show.” On the contrary, she is moved when she recalls moments like the day when, after a party she had organized for street children, she saw one crying because he had been given his first ice cream ever. “It’s one of the best memories of my life.”
She says she would like Haiti’s young people to have a voice in their nation’s future, to have space to express themselves and dedicate themselves to the future. The strength of character shown by so many Haitians in the face of disaster gives her hope. “We are exceptionally strong and we can stand up again.”
In her latest job, as always, Mildrède is supporting her people as they build their own future. She loves CARE because, as she puts it, nobody sitting in an office tells Haitians what’s best for them. “CARE involves people. If we need a canal, you might give us the material, but we will dig the canal ourselves. Help, but don’t do it for us.”