Mitch Albom's Haiti orphanage, a small oasis for children inside a gang-controlled city
In a Nutshell
In gang-controlled Port-au-Prince, Mitch Albom and his wife run Have Faith Haiti, a fortified 7-acre orphanage sheltering 56 at-risk children with love, faith, rigorous education in French and English, and security measures like armed guards and emergency bunkers. Most children arrive abandoned or malnourished; 16 high school graduates have earned U.S. college scholarships, pledging to return and serve Haiti for two years to rebuild their country. Amid Haiti's collapse—90% gang control, mass displacement, and stalled UN intervention—the orphanage proves environment unlocks every child's potential, fostering leaders undeterred by violence.
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It's rare to hear about something good happening in Haiti. 16 years after the devastating earthquake which killed some 200,000 people and left more than a million homeless, the government has all but collapsed and gangs battle for control of the capital, Port-au-Prince. There's a small oasis in that besieged city where children grow up behind walls, but hope is very much alive. It's an orphanage called Have Faith Haiti run by best-selling author Mitch Albom and his wife Janine. Since the earthquake, they've been taking in the most at-risk kids: abandoned infants, toddlers with disabilities, children begging in the streets. With love, faith, and a focus on education, the results have been extraordinary.
It's too dangerous for international flights to land in Haiti's capital. Every month, Mitch Albom flies the 2 hours from Florida to the northern city of Cap-Haitien. From there, they board a helicopter to reach Port-au-Prince. From the air, much of Haiti is a maze of dry riverbeds and rugged mountains stripped of trees. Port-au-Prince appears as a dense sprawl of chaotic streets and dilapidated buildings. On the ground, heavily armed guards drive Albom to the orphanage in a convoy of bulletproof vehicles.
It's kind of crazy just what it takes for you to get in and out of here. And you do this every month.
Yeah. Back before the gangs were an issue, we had two security guards. Now we have 24.
From the outside, it looks like a prison. The concrete walls are 30 ft tall with barbed wire and guard towers. To enter, you pass through a series of locked gates. Once inside, it feels like another world.
Mr. Mitch. MR. MITCH. MR. MITCH. OH MY GOODNESS. HELLO. SO NICE to see you guys. Hi. Hello.
Do you get greeted like that every time you come?
Pretty much.
There are 56 children living here and more than 50 teachers and staff. The kids range from infants and toddlers cared for by nannies to teenagers living in dorms. Most haven't left this 7-acre compound in more than four years. They play, do chores, go to church, and go to school 8 hours a day. They're taught in both French and English and prepared to go on to college.
All children deserve to feel like they have a future and the future is possible. And there are a lot of children right on the other side of that gate and their bellies are swollen and they're not eating and that's not fair. And if my wife and I can do anything to change that, even if it's a drop in the bucket, that'll be our drop.
You're not doing analysis of a 2- or 3-year-old and seeing what their cognition is and what they're capable of. You are just picking kids in the most difficult circumstances. Love, food, prayer. Works miracles.
We don't give aptitude tests to get in here. Most of the kids that come to us aren't even speaking yet, but if you put them in the right environment and you surround them with other kids who are aspiring to do certain things, they'll grow.
Not all the kids are orphans. Many were brought here by a desperate parent or family member who couldn't afford to feed them. Albom has to choose who gets in.
We try to set the conditions because otherwise it's hundreds and hundreds of children. So we say only if there's one parent, not two, only if there's no home, no actual structure home, or if there's a case of a sickness or something like that.
What are those interviews like?
I don't have any food to give my baby. The parents died. I don't know who this child is. We found this child under a tree. He was six weeks old and he was starving. So those stories, those interviews, they broke me in half, but they also cemented me to Haiti and cemented me to this operation, which I will do for the rest of my life.
Mitch Albom is the author of 19 books, including Tuesdays with Morrie and his most recent bestseller Twice. He first came to Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake. That's when Albom, who's Jewish, began fixing up a Christian orphanage run by an elderly pastor.
The pastor basically said, "I don't have any money to run this place, and I'm 84 years old." And I kind of blurted out, "Well, I could probably run it. How hard could it be?" You know, and he said, "Here you go."
Betany was brought here around that time, a year and a half old. Her father died in the earthquake, and her mother was desperate. Lorins was malnourished when he came at three and Gino was left here by her father at five. She now wants to be a lawyer.
I felt abandoned. I could say I was a little bit scared because there were a lot of new faces and just a lot of people staring and smiling. Smiling felt weird. Yeah, it was my first time seeing an American Mr. Mitch. What did you think? I was like, he's so white. Were you angry at all when you learned your story?
Honestly, not really because I know my mom is human and I don't think it was a really bad choice for her to bring me here because she was looking at my future.
Lauren, how about for you? You'd said that there was a sense of betrayal for you early on cuz I feel like why would like your own family leave you in a place yourself where you don't know anybody?
That feeling of abandonment is something Yanell, the Haitian director of Have Faith Haiti, knows well. He was left at the old orphanage 36 years ago when he was five.
Do you remember coming?
Oh, yes. I remember coming. It was the worst day of my life. Honestly, I did not like it.
Yanell's father had three other children and couldn't afford another.
I thought that they hate me back then because they just kicked me out and they didn't even tell me why. But later on, I would understand why they did that. So that's why I forgive him cuz I think they do it out of love.
When we share and when we give, it reminds us of what God did for us. Amen.
Amen.
Almost all the kids when they come, they all call me father. They need that connection. So I put myself there for them.
The kids view each other as brothers and sisters.
That's all we got growing up. We have to rely on each other to survive. That's all these kids have is each other. Yeah. That's all we have.
Keeping the kids safe is one of Yanell's biggest challenges. Outside the walls, the danger is very real. As much as 90% of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area is now controlled by armed gangs. Rapes, robberies, and murders are common. The UN estimates more than a million people have been displaced from their homes by violence. In just the last 24 hours, in this one area, there have been three shootouts between police and gang members.
In case gunmen ever break into the compound, Yanell regularly conducts surprise emergency drills. The kids grab go bags and rush to a concrete bunker with steel doors.
Okay. It's got its own generator, a month's supply of food and water, and cameras to monitor outside.
Yanell wasn't happy with the results of this drill.
Talia, where is she?
One of the babies was left napping in the nursery.
Not good. Can't leave no one behind.
Have Faith Haiti's budget is paid for mostly by Mitch Albom and his wife Janine along with help from public and private donors.
And we try to give them a childhood which is stolen from so many people. There's not a lot of kids in Haiti who get a childhood.
No, it's very hard to fundraise for Haiti. People think, "Oh, the money always disappears or the government takes it." I hear that a lot. These children don't deserve to be ignored because Haiti has a checkered history.
After security and fuel, education is the biggest expense. The classes are small and if a child struggles, they're given a customized lesson plan.
You don't see kids on phones or kids playing video games. No kids have any computers for personal use. There are no cell phones here. There's no television. And consequently, we get to see childhood in a much purer form than I think you get to see it in the States. So, their attention span is remarkably long relative to American kids.
16 kids have graduated from high school at Have Faith Haiti in the last 8 years, and all of them have gotten scholarships to American colleges and universities. But they won't be staying in the US.
All of our kids agree before they leave here that they are coming back after they finish their studies and they're going to work at our orphanage for two years for free to give back to the community. So, they're not going to America to take jobs. They're not going to America to do anything but appreciate it and then come back and make their country a better place. I hope our kids can stabilize this country and that's part of what we're trying to raise them to do.
In December, when they visited Mitch Albom's home outside Detroit, all the Haitian college students were staying there on their winter breaks. They sat down with four of them: Whidley, Bianca, JJ, and Ju.
What's it like living in the US? Like what stands out to you?
For me, it's like opportunities. Like there's lots of opportunities here.
Just being able to see the ins and out of how an actual government works.
I'd say like it was like a relief, a relief from all like the violence.
All of them said they're determined to help turn Haiti around.
Education is one of the things I would really want to take back and I will take back in Haiti because you need a better education to lead the government and to get a good job.
Eventually, I'd like to become an ambassador for my country someday. The end goal is to be a senator. Okay. In my country one day.
It doesn't scare you off to get involved in politics.
I mean, there is a little bit of fear, honestly. I mean, our last president got assassinated. We have to take that into account.
It seems like all of you want your future to be with Haiti.
Like to me, Haiti isn't just my country. It's like my home where I was raised and I have a deep connection to Haiti. So, yeah, that's my future is with Haiti.
Haiti's future is uncertain. To combat the gangs, in September, the United Nations, with US backing, authorized a force of 5,500 multinational troops to help the overwhelmed Haitian police. But so far, less than a thousand have been deployed, and the US has slashed its financial obligations to the country by more than 50%. This spring, another six students at the orphanage are set to graduate. They'll volunteer for a year of service in Haiti before applying for scholarships to study in the US. Even if they get them, however, it's no longer clear they'll be granted visas.
Is there a difference between you and kids outside these walls who are working in the streets in terms of their potential?
No, because it could have been vice versa and we could have been in the streets and they could have been here. So I think everybody has potential. They just have to be given the chance and the opportunity to explore that.
Every child has that potential inside no matter what circumstance they come from. If you give them something beautiful and calm and hopeful, they'll aspire to those things. And that's what I think you see with our kids.
Anderson Cooper's personal connection to Haiti: Somebody I knew so well, my math teacher assassinated. That was shocking. At 60minutesovertime.com.
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