Paulette Bekolo remembers the first time she saw her native Haiti through the lens of the developed world. She was in college in Paris and caught a glimpse of a poverty-stricken Haitian ghetto on a TV news report.
"I thought, 'That is not Haiti,' " said Bekolo, who grew up in an affluent suburb of Port Au Prince.
Bekolo vowed to work for change in Haiti, and she has spent much of her adult life helping her countrymen persevere through political turmoil, poverty and natural disaster. Since settling in North Carolina, she founded the nonprofit Hope for Haiti. Recently, she helped open a school in a rural area hit hard by the country's devastating 2010 earthquake through her church, Solid Rock First Haitian Tabernacle of Grace.
But lately, the Haitians have also come to her. Bekolo and others estimate that more than 2,000 of them have come to the state in recent years, many arriving penniless and unable to speak English. Some come straight from Haiti, where hunger and unemployment remain common, while others come from Florida and other U.S. states, seeking jobs in North Carolina's meat processing plants.
For the past year, Bekolo has spent much of her time ministering to these new arrivals - criss-crossing eastern North Carolina every Sunday to pray with them, and spending the rest of the week helping them find food, shelter, translators, transportation and more.
Bekolo found there was so much to do in settling this population that she shuttered her own tax return and accounting business to free more of her time.
"She's a very strong woman of God," said the Rev. Erilus St. Sauveur, pastor of the Solid Rock church, who has worked closely with Bekolo in ministering to the newly arrived Haitians. "She loves the Haitian people and she has a passion to help them."
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SOURCE: The News & Observer
