First set, Ages 4 through 6: Graduates of the FEPE orphanage and EFE School in Port-au-Prince
Some of the Future in Haiti! Portaits by Oliver Jean-baptiste!
June 29, 2025
This past week we received from photographer OLIVIER JEAN-BAPTISE in Port-au-Prince, Haiti an Album of Portaits that he’d taken of Students living in the FEPE (Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants) orphanage and attending the EFE (Ecole Foyer Espoir) school. We again were knocked out!
Olivier was himself a student at FEPE and EFE. He was among first group that MARIE JO POUX absorbed in late 2009 and then January 2010, followin 7.0 Earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince on January 12. Olivier is featured on the Poster for Luis Pena’s very telling and affecting documentary about the beginnings of FEPE and EFE, “GRACE & MERCY”.
Olivier around age 8 in Luis Pena’s “Grace & Mercy” documentary about Marie-Jo and her brother Ben Constant—’a brother and sister struggling to help their fellow Haitians.’
He became first a photographer, then a videographer, then the steward of FEPE’s youngest students.
Jonathand Saintiné. (Chairman of the EFE School), Maryse, and Olivier, September 29, 2017 in the EFE school.
In August of the year 2000 Marie-Jo accepted into a FEPE a one-year-old who then found a Godmother in Melba Ferdinand of New Orleans. The new student’s name became Amarie Felicia Rose. Olivier found a subject who mirrored his own sensitivity.
He continued to photograph Amarie Rose as he himself progressed with a single camera that Sticking Up For Children passed along.
He gained a Certificate from one Institute, April of 2024, despite the many gunshots and barricades in Port-au-Prince.
This month we in New Orleans first received a Birthday Greeting from Amarie (and by extension Olivier) to Melba Ferdinand.
Then arrived the 26 Portraits from Olivier and what must of necessity be an improvised and makeshift Studio.
I’ll offer them in four batches to you. They to Maryse and me and several others who have benefited these students’ institutions since 2014 through Sticking Up For Children, even with Port-au-Prince barred to Airlines, present earnest hope that simply goes forward for goals that won’t be blocked or choked or slurred. goals that are conscious and practical and real as dreams.
The first seven from FEPE and EFE, ages 4 to 7. How complex each one! How hopeful! How they reflect the care that they’ve received! How boundless the power of good in each one! How much each one looks like he or she promises to do!
