Haiti’s Prime Minister, Michèle Pierre-Louis, was born in Jeremie (in the southwestern region of Haiti) on Oct. 5, 1947. Born Michele Duvivier, she was married to, but later divorced, Edouard Pierre-Louis. Together, they had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1972.
Educational Background
Michèle Pierre-Louis completed the first part of her education in Haiti and went on to earn a Masters in Economics from Queens College in New York in 1976 and a Doctorate in Humanities from St. Michael's College in Burlington, Vermont in 2004.
Employment Background
Between the years of 1979 and 1982, Pierre-Louis served as the Assistant Director-General of the National Airport Authority (AAN). In this role, she was responsible for AAN administration and governmental relations on both a national and international scale. From 1986 to 1988, she worked as a national trainer for Mission Alpha, a nation-wide literacy program sponsored by Haiti’s Catholic Church.
During this time period, Pierre-Louis was also director of the Karl Leveque Institute, a preeminent human rights center in Haiti. After the Duvalier dictatorship came to an end in 1986, she worked with human rights organizations to organize seminars and workshops with the goal of rebuilding Haitian social structures.
Since then, she has also served as a management consultant for the Haitian Development Foundation, Executive Director of the Haitian Financial Company of Development, and head of the Credit Bank of Nova Scotia in Delmas.
Political Background
In 1991, she was appointed to President Jean Bertrand Aristide's Cabinet. Her role as a cabinet member was to both redefine state missions and coordinate contact between the president and the ministers who were responsible for addressing the demands of peasant organizations in a time of agricultural reform.
Since 1995, Pierre-Louis has been executive director of FOKAL, a non-governmental organization supported by financier George Soros' Open Society Institute. FOKAL organizes educational programs on a variety of cultural subjects as well as literacy programs. They also sponsor human rights programs, library developments, cultural events, print publications and CDs, community restructuring projects and environmental campaigns.
Before accepting her current title as Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis was a professor of Educational Sciences at Quisqueya University, a private institution in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Pierre-Louis was considered for the role of Prime Minister once before by President Aristide in 1993. Instead, he chose publisher Robert Malval. On a political level, Pierre-Louis alienated herself from Aristide and his Lavalas family during in the later years of his presidency.
Protests Against Aristide
She oversaw the organization of the funeral for radio journalist, Jean Dominique, who was assassinated in April 2000 after speaking out against Artistide’s regime. Under her direction, FOKAL played a role in 2003 and 2004 protests against Artistide’s government that they considered to be repressive and intimidating.
In a Dec. 11, 2003 press release, Pierre-Louis spoke out against what she termed as the Aristide "government's hostility to higher education and to basic human rights, including the right to demonstrate peacefully." These words followed a Dec. 5, 2003 conflict between students and pro-government organizations at a local university.
Pierre-Louis was appointed to her current position by President Rene Préval. She is the second female prime minister in Haitian history (after Claudette Werleigh who served in the role from 1995-1996). Michele’s nomination has give hope to Haitian female activists who have become tired of Haiti’s male-dominated political scene.
Haitian Women
Her appointment has already inspired many Haitian women who lack the same educational opportunities as their male counterparts. An advocate for equal access to education, Michele Pierre-Louis will undoubtedly do much to improve Haiti’s educational and socio-economic climate for women throughout the country.
Sources:
Barry-Shaw, Nikolas. “Haiti's new PM and the power of NGOs.”
Pierre-Louis, Yves and Kim Ives. “Preval Nominates Michele Pierre-Louis for Prime Minister,” July 2, 2008.
 |
