A meal when a child is hungry. An education that opens doors. Medical care when it cannot wait. Clean water when families need it most.
We also foster economic independence through microloans and livestock projects, strengthen local communities, and stand with families through disaster relief and rebuilding.
Music and community life at the Château center, a gathering place rebuilt with VOC support after Hurricane Matthew.
Music at a Sunday gathering in Château. The community center also provides space for VOC’s food program and locally led education.
Food distributions, classrooms, medical care, water access, livelihoods, and community rebuilding. Explore the work and people behind VOC’s mission.
A school assembly at National Evangelic Siloe welcomed visitors with music, alongside classroom visits and conversations with educators.
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VOC distributes food to orphanages, community centers in Château and Monette, and children in Gomier.
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Medical assistance and support for children in orphanages meet urgent needs.
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Water and snack packs brought to children from Château following a meeting with Haiti’s Department of Education.
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Château residents discussed joining a goat-raising program as part of broader efforts to build livelihoods.
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Local teams prepared food and coordinated aid for families affected by the earthquake in Grand’Anse.
Explore the program →Voice of the Children Foundation stands alongside children and families in Haiti to fight hunger, support education and medical care, and improve access to clean water.
When earthquakes and hurricanes strike, our local partners provide emergency assistance and help communities rebuild. Beyond the crisis, we support housing, community spaces, microloans and livestock programs that help families build greater economic independence.
Children deserve more than simply getting through another day. They deserve the chance to learn, grow, follow their ambitions and shape their own futures.
Discover how each program works, see stories from the communities we serve and explore photographs from the field.
Deliver food through orphanages, community centers and feeding programs for children.
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Help families access urgent treatment and support children with ongoing health needs.
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Improve water access, sanitation and infrastructure where essential services are scarce.
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Support tuition, local schools and students working toward higher education.
Explore education →Support small loans and livestock programs so families can pursue lasting economic opportunity.
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Provide food, water and essential supplies, then help communities recover and rebuild.
Explore disaster relief →See how VOC supports children and families through local projects in Château, Monette, Gomier, LaBastille, and Jérémie.
Our regular food programs bring meals and essential supplies to children in Gomier, orphanages and community centers in Château and Monette. Supporting dependable local delivery makes a difference in communities where food insecurity is not a one-day emergency.
Food distributions have reached two orphanages, the community centers in Château and Monette, and restavèk children in Gomier. The food is prepared and delivered with help from people in the communities we serve.
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Monette is home to one of our food programs. Visits with families have helped us respond to serious malnutrition and food insecurity, and stay connected to the needs of children in this remote community.
Some families face long journeys and costs they cannot afford to obtain medical treatment. We have helped children with serious burns reach hospital care, supported newborn twins with essential supplies, and assisted children recovering from malnutrition. Our work also reaches local orphanages and families with urgent medical needs.
Each case requires practical action, whether that means transportation, medical assistance or support during recovery.
When two newborn babies needed help, Celia and Sasha stepped in to respond. Our Haiti team works alongside trusted local partners to help children and families access urgent support.
When a baby receiving hospital care needed a cervical collar, the necessary equipment was difficult to find locally. The team searched pharmacies until they could help secure the medical support the child needed.
During a community visit, two young girls with serious burns needed hospital treatment. Our team helped arrange transportation so the children could reach medical care.
Visits to Alexandre’s orphanage help keep us connected with the children and the people who care for them. Food support and personal relationships have been part of this partnership.
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At the public hospital in Jérémie, patients and families often need to provide essentials such as bedding and meals themselves. Our medical assistance aims to support families with these practical needs alongside access to treatment.
After the 2021 earthquake damaged local water storage, our team helped deliver water to affected communities. We also support sanitation, housing repairs and community infrastructure. The Château community center, rebuilt after Hurricane Matthew, serves both education and feeding programs.
Water and safe community spaces are part of the everyday foundations families need to recover and thrive.
After a meeting with Haiti’s Department of Education, the team brought water and snacks for children from Château. Time spent together outside the classroom is another part of supporting the community.
After Hurricane Matthew destroyed the original building, local residents and VOC supporters helped rebuild the community center in Château. Today it provides a gathering place and space for a locally run school and the food program.
See related videoSee the community building togetherSee a gathering at the centerWe support tuition for children at local orphanages and work with schools to understand needs for books, meals, uniforms and classroom space. Through visits and partnerships with Haiti Mission School in LaBastille and College Dumas, we help children stay connected to education. Students supported by the Foundation have gone on to attend university.
At Haiti Mission School, also known as National Evangelic Siloe, students greeted visitors with a welcome song during a school assembly. Classroom visits and conversations with educators are part of our continuing commitment to education.
Reaching Haiti Mission School in LaBastille requires travel by motorcycle and a hike into the mountains. The isolation of communities like this makes access to education and essential resources even more important. The school was founded with support from JoEllen and Tom Parsons.
Visits to College Dumas, a secondary school serving grades 7 through 12, have helped build connections and identify scholarship needs. Students supported through VOC and partner schools have continued their education, including some who have attended university.
A family needs more than emergency assistance. Microloans can help people start or expand income-producing activities, while livestock programs support household earnings and community resilience. By fostering economic independence, our goal is to give families more ways to support themselves and their children.
Locally shaped initiatives create opportunities that can continue long after a single donation has been spent.
At a meeting with Château’s community board, residents expressed interest in joining a goat-raising program. Livestock, microloans, and other locally guided opportunities are among the ways VOC works toward long-term economic independence. The gallery also includes Howard Nicols with a goat during a community visit in Monette.
Following the August 2021 earthquake in Haiti, our local team distributed food, tarps and clean water, helped transport injured residents and supported children displaced from damaged orphanages. After Hurricane Matthew, we helped rebuild the Château community center so food and education programs could continue.
Emergency response matters most when it is followed by the commitment to rebuild alongside families and communities.
After the earthquake, the VOC team in Grand’Anse delivered food, clean water, tarps, and essential supplies to families in need. Team members transported injured residents and helped children displaced from damaged orphanages find safer places to stay. The response depended on local people working together when roads and bridges were badly damaged.
Alongside food, education, and medical assistance, time together matters. These photographs capture everyday connections, local visits, and moments of joy.
Children from Château and Alexandre’s orphanage enjoyed a day together by the sea. A rented bus brought the group together for an outing filled with time to play, explore, and enjoy being children.
After a local market visit, the team traveled into the hills to spend time with families in Monette. These visits strengthen relationships with the community and help connect VOC’s food and medical support to the needs of local children.
From Soup Joumou celebrations and Sunday music in Château to neighbors working together to build, these videos bring moments from Haiti to life.
Children share Soup Joumou, the traditional Haitian Independence Soup. This celebration brings families together around freedom, history, and community.
A taste of Sunday at one of our churches in Haiti. A young boy dancing at the front captured our hearts during the service.
Two of our favorite parts are the drums and the joy of making music together. A child at an orphanage supported by our food program built the drum set.
Each step in rebuilding an orphanage moves a community forward. Work means hope.
A lively Sunday service in Haiti, with Friznel leading part of the gathering.
Community members joining forces to build in Haiti. Each contribution helps turn a shared project into a space the community can use.
Children need nourishment, medical attention and safe water before anything else is possible.
Tuition and school partnerships help children keep learning. Some students supported by our Foundation have gone on to university.
Microloans, livestock and community projects help families develop lasting economic opportunity.
Give to food and nutrition, medical care, education, clean water, disaster recovery, and programs that foster economic independence. Every contribution supports work grounded in long-standing relationships with local communities.
Voice of the Children Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. EIN: 34-1780415. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Learn more about our projects, ask about partnerships, volunteer, or find out about other ways to support our mission and the children and families we serve in Haiti.
Contact us at voiceofchildren.board@gmail.com
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Follow our updates on FacebookVoice of the Children Foundation brings together volunteer leaders and trusted colleagues in Haiti to support local communities, respond to urgent needs, and create lasting opportunity.
Guiding our mission, partnerships, and long-term commitment to Haiti.
Founder & President
Howard Nicols founded Voice of the Children Foundation in 1993. A former attorney, he has spent much of his retirement doing something that has mattered to him for decades: working with people in Haiti to help children and families build better lives.
He knows the communities the foundation serves, and the people who keep its work going. Over the years he has helped deliver food to orphanages and rural villages, find medical care for children in emergencies, support students, and rebuild after hurricanes and earthquakes. He believes the people closest to the challenges should help shape the solutions.
Howard cares just as much about what comes after an immediate crisis. Through microloans, livestock projects, and other forms of practical support, he works to help families earn their own income and create lasting economic independence.
He is determined to keep the foundation’s overhead low and put as much of every contribution as possible toward the people and programs it supports. More than thirty years after starting VOC, he is still working closely with Haitian friends and colleagues, listening to what they need, and finding ways to help.
Board of Directors
A New York City-based organizer and advocate, Christine has devoted her professional life to working with children, grassroots organizing, political campaigns, and fighting for social justice.
Her commitment to Haiti extends beyond VOC. She also supports Haitian immigrants across the United States, assisting with asylum declarations, advocating for families facing detention and deportation, and fighting to protect immigrant rights.
As a member of VOC’s Board of Directors, Christine brings her experience in organizing, advocacy, and community outreach to strengthen the Foundation’s work. She is committed to turning listening into action and refuses to accept a status quo that placates our voices rather than commits to concrete change.
“Fear says nothing ever changes. Hope says watch us.”
Board of Directors
Additional biography and portrait coming soon.
Board of Directors
Biography and portrait coming soon.
Board of Directors
JoEllen Parsons has spent decades opening doors for children in Haiti through education. In 2007, she and her late husband, the Rev. Tom Parsons, helped start the Haiti Mission School in LaBastille, a mountain community near Jérémie.
Working with Haitian teachers, families, and local leaders, JoEllen and Tom helped make schooling and daily meals possible for children who otherwise faced enormous barriers to learning. They also supported scholarships so students could continue into secondary school. What began as a shared undertaking became a lasting part of the community.
JoEllen has remained deeply involved: visiting classrooms, meeting with educators, celebrating students’ progress, and helping connect educational needs with practical support. The school she and Tom built together touched generations of students and remains an enduring part of his legacy, even though conditions in Haiti have since forced it to close.
As a member of the Voice of the Children Foundation board, JoEllen continues the work that she and Tom cared about so deeply, making sure children have more opportunities than the circumstances of their birth might otherwise allow.
Our Haiti-based colleagues and community partners are central to everything we do. From coordinating food distributions to supporting education, medical assistance, and relief efforts, they help make our programs possible.
Team portraits and additional details will be added after they are confirmed.
VOC Team in Haiti
Supporting VOC’s work with communities in Haiti.
VOC Team in Haiti
Haiti-based colleague supporting the foundation’s community and relief efforts.
VOC Team in Haiti
Haiti-based team member working with local partners to support VOC programs.
Our people and community partners, together in Haiti and beyond.
Honoring Tom and JoEllen's shared commitment to Haiti's children
In 2007, Rev. Tom Parsons and his wife, JoEllen, helped establish the Haiti Mission School in LaBastille, where children gained access to education, meals, and the encouragement to keep learning. It was a labor of love they shared with Haitian teachers, families, and friends.
Though Tom is no longer with us, his legacy lives on in the school they helped build together and in the lives of the children and families who became part of their story.
Tom's collection of poems recalls the people, places, and experiences that shaped his years in Haiti.
Find Tom’s book