Fellow Highlights

How Nadine Duplessy Kearns Is Building A Haitian Women’s Community In DC and Beyond

December 8, 2016

Photograph of a woman in her 40s who has heritage from Haiti with dark skin tone and chin length black hair. She is wearing a red skirt suit with a nametag on her right lapel and a rose on her right lapel and strappy heels. Next to her a man with dark skin tone wearing a grey jacket, white button up shirt and navy pants. They are standing in front of a staircase. — *Nadine Duplessy Kearns and Ambassador Paul Altidor at the 2016 Haitian Ladies Brunch.*

When Nadine Duplessy Kearns (1998 Fellows) first moved to Washington, DC, she was twenty-six, a newly wed, and about to start a dream job in international development. She had moved from Boston, where she had attended the prestigious Boston Latin School, Harvard, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. She had been named a 1998 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.

Everything was going according to plan, and DC represented the start of Nadine’s career. But her new life lacked one key ingredient: women friends who shared her culture.

“I felt alone when I moved to DC because I wasn’t part of a big Haitian community,” Nadine explained. Having moved to Massachusetts from Port-au-Prince when she was eleven, she had grown up in a strong Haitian community, surrounded by strong women who shared her culture and identity. In addition to three sisters, Nadine had thirty female first cousins and six aunts. As an immigrant, she relied on these women to show her the way—to guide her toward opportunities to learn English, to the exam required by the top public schools in the city, to help in preparing for college applications. They were her rock and the reason for her success, Nadine said.

With no clearly defined Haitian-American organization for women in Washington, Nadine set out to build her own community. She invited the few Haitian-American women she knew for brunch.

The brunch became something of an annual affair. Over the years friends would bring new friends and soon enough the brunch grew from five to seven to nine to eleven women. Then, in 2010, Nadine made a concerted effort to expand the network beyond her own personal connections. She asked everyone to purposefully invite all their female Haitian-American friends and colleagues.

In 2012, when Paul G. Altidor was appointed Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, the Haitian Embassy took note of the brunch and asked if it could host the event. With a new location and the hard work of a host committee made up of women Nadine had met at past gatherings, the brunch flourished.

Photograph of a party, many women stand in circles talking. They are all dressed up. Multiple rooms can be seen, they all have very high ceilings, big windows, long curtains and artwork hung on the walls. — The brunch started out as just a few friends. In 2016, over 300 women attended.
Photo Credit: Lydia Kearney Carlis for Eyemagination Imaging | C-Suite Pics

In early December 2016, the DC Haitian Ladie’s Brunch held its eleventh annual gathering at the Embassy, with a record-breaking 300 women in attendance. It was held in conjunction with the White House Council on Women and Girls’ White House Briefing for Haitian-American Women and offered a weekend of networking activities.

The weekend was a major milestone for the brunch series, and for Nadine, who said she was moved to see Haitian American women from across the country come together. It reminded her of just how far the community has grown since she first moved to the city.

“When professional Haitian American women move to DC from major diaspora communities like Boston, New York City, or Miami, they can feel alone, like I did,” she said. “When they come to the brunch for the first time, they can finally feel that weight lifted. They are part of a community. We’re here for each other.”

Nadine said that the annual brunch is an opportunity for women to meet, to reconnect with one another, and to form both professional and personal relationships. She has seen women go on to collaborate on projects and form deep lifelong friendships. The brunches are also a way for the Embassy to connect directly with the community and broaden its reach.

In the future, Nadine hopes that this annual convening will be a platform for a national Haitian-American women’s network. She also hopes that this network will go on to connect with professional women’s communities in Haiti.

In her professional life, Nadine is president and founder of AccessED, a consulting practice serving schools, community-based organizations, and foundations committed to increasing college access and success for low-income students. ∎

Header photo: Lydia Kearney Carlis for Eyemagination Imaging | C-Suite Pics