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HOPE FOR HAITI

For more information on Foundation Hope for Haiti, call (954) 646-3020 or write to 14990 S. Bel Air Drive, Pembroke Pines, Fla., 33027.

PéTION-VILLE, HAITI - It was a slow-moving freight car that Nadege Robertson hopped with some other partygoers during her freshman year at the University of Redlands. It had to be. She was in a formal dress and high heels.

The venture seemed harmless enough as the train crawled through lower San Timoteo Canyon, almost in view of her parents' Redlands home. She would simply jump off when it slowed again.

Just one problem: By the time that happened, Robertson was in Arizona.

In a way, the 1988 incident foreshadowed much of her adult life.

In 1994, Robertson accepted a one-year position teaching English literature at a school in Haiti. It was a chance to learn more about her mother's homeland, an island nation that ranks as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Ten years later, this train has yet to slow down. But then Robertson - now Nadege Robertson Tippenhauer - is no longer looking to jump off.

Stan Lim/The Press-Enterprise
Nadege Robertson Tippenhauer grew up in Redlands but was drawn to work in her mother's native land. She's now executive director of the nonprofit
Fondation Espoir.

"Either you turn away because it's so offensive, or there's something that seduces you," Tippenhauer, 34, says of Haiti. "Once I came here, there's something that speaks to a belief in me that I have work to do here."

In the wake of a recent uprising that purged the country of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Tippenhauer and others believe there is new hope for corruption-plagued Haiti. And in a land where illiteracy runs between 60 percent and 70 percent, where one in 10 children die in their first year of life and where decent roads and basic services are a distant dream, she's determined to show that one person, or at least one small nonprofit, can make a difference.

For the past three years, Tippenhauer has served as executive director of Fondation Espoir, a humanitarian organization founded by her mother, Florence.

Tippenhauer spends her time pushing health-care programs, promoting the construction of a hospital for the disabled, helping to guide start-up businesses for women and encouraging the discussion of democracy and social issues on a weekly radio show. She was recently in the central coastal town of Saint-Marc, delivering supplies to one of two schools that Fondation Espoir supports.

Tumultuous times

But most of her work is done from the foundation's second-floor offices - above a day spa, on one of the rutted streets of this city, 20 minutes east of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Work here is never easy, she says. That's especially true today.

For the third time, the power is out.

Computers have blinked off.

The overhead fan winds to a stop.

Tippenhauer sighs.

"I've never been in a place where you have to work so hard not to have a problem, and you end up having exactly that problem," she says. "It's just the Haitian way."

Violence and destruction surrounded the Feb. 29 departure of Aristide, a populist figure whom many feel was corrupted once in power. Since then, electricity has been spotty, more off than it is on. The office's back-up generator isn't functioning like it should, either. So at midday, Tippenhauer resigns herself to relying on the open window for light and a breeze to cool the office's humid air.

The breeze never comes, but diesel fumes drift in, along with the sounds of horns and revving engines as cars battle their way through the city's ragged, narrow corridors.

Across the street, the screams of schoolchildren at play come from behind a high wall draped with blooming bougainvillea. The blossoms trail down to the dirt sidewalk, one of many lined with merchants.

Vendors hawk items ranging from reed baskets to wooden cups, brightly colored wall hangings to cheap knock-offs of famous Haitian paintings, poached sea-tortoise shells to pastries made atop oil-fired stoves on the narrow walkway.

In a country with little money, everyone has something to sell.

Contrasts abound

It's one of the nation's many contrasts.

Although Haiti is a traditional Catholic enclave, most of its citizens also practice voodoo. The country has idyllic beaches swathed in white sand. But it also has overcrowded, waterfront slums laced with open sewers. Hillsides dotted with stately villas rise next to slopes plastered with concrete hovels erected by squatters. On streets littered with mounds of trash, girls in spotless, brightly colored uniforms, ribbons in their hair, jostle each other on their way home from school.

The kids look safe enough. Yet security, never reliable in Haiti, has been even worse while interim Prime Minister Gerard Letortue attempts to form a new government.

Recently, down the street from Tippenhauer's office, shopkeepers caught a thief and burned him alive. At grocery stores and restaurants, private guards with shotguns watch the doors. And earlier today, Tippenhauer learned that a friend, the wife of a local hotelier, was kidnapped. Her captors are demanding $750,000. Eventually, a lesser ransom will be paid to secure her release.

"It's like the Wild West," Tippenhauer says.

Nothing even close to the life she knew while growing up in Southern California. The daughter of Jon Robertson, longtime conductor of the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, Tippenhauer graduated from Redlands High School in 1987 and from the University of Redlands in 1993.

While growing up, she had heard stories about her mother's homeland but had visited only briefly a handful of times.

Florence and her family fled their country in 1956 when Florence was 12. Her father had opposed Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier before Duvalier came to power. With his family in danger, Florence's father took them into exile. Florence grew up in New York, Jamaica and Belgium.

It wasn't until 1986 - when Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude, abandoned the presidency and fled Haiti - that the Robertsons were able to come and go freely to the island. A year later, with support from her church, Facts of Faith Fellowship in Pomona, Florence established Fondation Espoir. Her first projects were to help schools in Saint-Marc and near her family's home in Laboule.

Inspirational challenge

Now at the agency's helm, Tippenhauer says the challenges of Haiti have surpassed anything she imagined before coming here. Yet she feels inspired, not overwhelmed.

"Haiti has awoken something in me that was latent," she says, "and given me the chance to see if I can walk the walk. There's something here that nurtures me and has from day one. For some personalities, I think (Haiti) kicks you into gear. I think it would be almost impossible for me to go live a normal life in the U.S. The States, for me, was too easy."

It's not surprising to friends of hers in Redlands.

Stan Lim/The Press-Enterprise
A woman walks along a mountain road in Haiti, the poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere.

"From the time that I've known her in college, she has always had this deep commitment of improving the quality of life of the people of Haiti," says Arthur Svenson, a professor of government at the University of Redlands.

Svenson, who also plays violin for the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, served as Tippenhauer's teacher and adviser during her college years. The two have stayed in touch.

"It's beautiful to be around her when she talks about Haiti," he says.

During her first seven years on the island, Tippenhauer wasn't deeply involved in Fondation Espoir. She helped to keep tabs on the schools and other projects the organization was assisting. At summer camps, she would coordinate workshops for the kids. But she was working full time as a teacher and later writing for an Internet company. She was also a singer with a series of bands.

Changing priorities

Then in 2001, problems with bronchial asthma forced her to spend several months in Redlands. While there, she began to reassess her priorities.

"I knew I had to do something that I completely believed in," she says. "It needed to be something in the humanitarian sector. It was obvious that the foundation was already there."

So she threw herself into it full time as the foundation's executive director. Her aim: expand the organization's role beyond direct aid to include efforts toward changing social attitudes.

"I became very disillusioned with what I was seeing here," Tippenhauer says. "I started to understand how long-term this work was going to be. But I knew I could make an impact. To teach Haitians how to love themselves again, teach them how to have responsibility and civic participation."

Along the way, she continued exploring her musical avenues. Her current band, N'didgenous, incorporates the didgeridoo, flute, trumpet, drums and Tippenhauer's smoky, haunting vocals in styles that touch on trance, world and club music.

She sees a connection between the music and the foundation.

"If I can make N'didgenous work," she says, "with one concert I can make more money for the foundation than in a year of knocking on doors."

Two of her weekdays are now spent in the music studio. During the other three, she's knocking on those doors for the foundation.

Tippenhauer listens to the suggestions of her small staff about potential projects. She visits a health clinic designed for disabled Haitians, encouraging the patients. Ten percent of Haitians are disabled, largely due to amputations resulting from infected wounds.

Tippenhauer also leads seminars for young women who want to launch their own businesses; the foundation provides start-up loans for those who show promise.

And she recently visited Ecole Saint Georges de Fleurenceau, the school in Saint-Marc.

"We had a pickup full of things," she says, including school supplies, food and "Christmas gifts they never got in December" because of the unrest. The foundation also helps support the school's staff, and Tippenhauer delivered salaries to those workers. During the political upheaval, it was too risky to carry the cash to the school.

Radio waves

Twice a week, Tippenhauer and her husband, Hans, are on the airwaves with two radio shows. One invites experts to discuss health, business, government and other social issues. The second is a call-in program promoting democracy and entrepreneurship.

One recent show addressed discipline, or the lack of it, in Haitian Culture, says Tippenhauer.

"What are the things that can help discipline and what can we do in the schools? What can you do in your community? Some people in the south, where it's agricultural, called in and said, 'We have discipline, it's the people in the city.'"

Of course, city callers disagreed, she says, but the discussion got people thinking ahead.

"It's been quite focused on preparing the future," she says of the show.

It was the programs' calling for political change that put the Tippenhauers' lives in danger during the recent turmoil.

Chimeres, armed supporters of Aristide, shot up the radio station on two occasions, the couple says. The second-story, storefront windows are still shattered and peppered with bullet holes.

When tensions peaked, Tippenhauer said, a contract was put out on her husband. He stayed in hiding for several days.

But the broadcasts continued, along with pro-democracy marches. Many of the demonstrations began at a treeless park two blocks from Fondation Espoir's offices. They wound down the streets into Port-au-Prince. Driving along those roads, Tippenhauer points out spots where Aristide's forces opened fire on the marchers.

The number of casualties remains sketchy, but there are reports of at least three people killed during one march in Port-au-Prince.

Tippenhauer and her husband needed an armed escort to get to the station. But, she says, "We knew we had to keep getting the message out."

Illustration: A troubled nation

Seeking solitude

With the daily chaos they confront, it's little wonder that she and her husband choose to live in the relatively quiet town of Laboule, a township outside Pétion-Ville. Getting there is a spine-grinding ride through city streets that often have more potholes than pavement.

Most Haitians get around via tap-taps, brightly painted compact trucks with decorated awnings or hard shells covering the back and benches in the beds for passengers. Most have deific entreaties emblazoned across the front and sides, such as "Please Jesus" and "God Protects Me." There is good reason for the prayers.

Traffic controls - in the few places they exist - are ignored. Cars with the loudest horns and most aggressive drivers get the right of way. Driving on the wrong side of the road is commonplace. And conditions on the rural roads, at least in the local mountains, are worse.

It is in these mountains, in a home surrounded by lush mango and avocado trees, that the Tippenhauers live - in the same home where Hans grew up.

Nadege met and married Hans after coming to Haiti. Her deepening love of the country is tied up in her husband's passion for improving life here.

Although he left his native island to study industrial engineering and management theory in Puerto Rico and Connecticut, Hans says he always knew he would come back to Haiti. His family is here, and family ties in Haiti are tight-knit and extensive.

Within the enclave of about a dozen homes where the Tippenhauers live, all but three are occupied by relatives of one sort or another. The couple says well-established families, such as the ones they come from, and private foundations are key to Haiti's recovery.

But can Fondation Espoir - with a yearly budget of about $300,000 - make any impact?

Perspective is necessary

It's important to maintain perspective when working in Haiti, says Dr. Jeffery Randle, a Salt Lake City physician who established the Healing Hands foundation in 1998. His group is building a clinic for the disabled with Fondation Espoir as a partner.

The single team that Randle brought to Haiti four years ago has grown to eight teams, all with volunteer members. Last year's budget for the organization was $130,000, he says.

Randle focuses on helping one patient at a time.

"You have to look at it that way," he says. "Otherwise, you just throw up your hands. This country is so messed up. They can't even collect their own garbage or provide clean drinking water for the population. But hopefully, we're setting an example for people who have the capacity to make more changes."

And one change leads to another, Tippenhauer says.

Last year, she met Patrick Lewis, 29. Though blind and unable to read Braille, Lewis had studied journalism at the college level. With only a white cane, he gets around the city on his own, but he couldn't find work. He came to Fondation Espoir for help.

"Patrick inspires me," Tippenhauer says.

She sees potential for him to work in radio, but she felt he would have more opportunities if he learned English. Schools were reluctant to take a blind man. Still, Tippenhauer persisted and got him enrolled. The foundation pays his tuition.

"I've been able to live again," Lewis says. "I try to give an example (to
others) that a person who's lost their eyes, it doesn't mean they've lost their life."

Because of Lewis' academic success, Tippenhauer says, a school that balked at admitting him now has established a permanent scholarship for blind students.

Donations welcome

The foundation is growing stateside as well. Last year, Florence Robertson established a Florida-based branch of the nonprofit called Foundation Hope for Haiti. It raised $40,000 in aid during 2003.

She hopes donations will increase as the foundation works to generate greater awareness in the Inland Empire and around the United States.

"The task is so huge, you can't think about it," says Jon Robertson. "You just do what you do."

While the challenges of Haiti ignite his daughter's passions, even she has her limits.

"If I looked at Haiti's history, I'd pack my bags," Tippenhauer says. "I told Hans, 'I will not, 10 years from now, be marching to remove another dictator.'"

Right now, however, she won't let go.

"Politics has swallowed everything for so many years," she says. "But culturally, artistically, literature, there is so much this country has to offer. With the right people working together, something can be done here. I have a firm belief that I'm here to be doing exactly this."

Her husband smiles at her.

"I believe Haiti has been a strange and difficult experience for her," he says, "but her ch'i (inner force) has made her a wonderful human being. She's very complete."

His comments bring tears to his wife's eyes.

"My true, true desire is to grow old here," she says, "because I have lots to do."

Pines Express January/February Issue

Believing in Miracles

Gina Ferrus-Duncan says miracles do happen - even in Haiti.

Those miracles can be as small as helping a little girl such as Emmanuella Terrez, who has spina binda, to be ableto walk to school. Or they can be big, such as sucddenly getting the chance to build a hospital that can aid hundreds of others like Emnanuella.

Ferrus-Duncan is director of Helaing Hands, a nonprofit agency dedicated to helping the disabled in Hait. The organization was foudned in 1998 by Dr. Jeffrey Randle, a Salt Lake City physician. Its one of many small priveate foundations-such as Fondation Espoir its partner agency- working to meet the needs that Haiti's corrupt governments have not satisfied.

Hospitals in haiti don't treat the disabled, says Ferrus-Duncan, who left a job as a nurse in a Port-au-Prince hospital to help run Healing Hands when it started. "I saw so many disabled children just left uncared for,"she says. "Really, they were sentenced to death."