Peace House 2025 - Give Peace a Chance

PEACE HOUSE provides stable housing for young lgbtq+ people in Haiti and has two safe houses—one in Port-au-Prince and one in Jakmel—where people can get together, relax, and be themselves. This is wildly important in a country where lgbtq+ people have very limited spaces where they can congregate together freely in public. Peace House is a place where young people can go when they are forced out of their homes or are fleeing violence in their neighborhoods.

PEACE HOUSE started in 2012 when Yonel Charles he had a vision. When Yonel needed a place to live after he got kicked out of his parents’ house for being queer, and he didn’t just want just a room for himself, he wanted to start a house where any lgbtq+ person could go that was in need of housing.

15 YEARS LATER, Peace House Jakmel is still going strong and is currently home to four people. The Port-au Prince location houses 8 people and is in its eighth year. Both houses are social hubs and have many friends who come around for meals and fellowship. When I visited Peace House Jakmel the house was lively and full of love.

BECOME A FRIEND OF PEACE HOUSE and join us to help keep Peace House afloat!! This is an opportunity where a tiny donation makes a huge difference in a young person’s life:

RENT = HAPPINESS

$40 pays the rent for 1 month for one house

$80 pays the rent for 1 month in both houses

GOAL

Our goal is to raise $1,200, which covers the rent for both houses for the year. Any extra money we raise creates a small expense fund for emergencies.

HOW DID WE GET INVOLVED?

Ivy Jeanne and I traveled to Haiti in 2011 to teach a filmmaking workshop at Jakmel Ekspresyon. We had both been introduced to Yonel by our late friend Flo McGarrell during previous trips to Haiti (to visit Flo who was working at an art center in Jakmel.) During our visit, Yonel shared his vision to start Peace House, and Ivy and I helped him cover the rent since paying for a whole house was more than he could afford. Ever since, a growing number of Friends of Peace House have helped Yonel pull together funds each year.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

Be a Friend of Peace House! Make a donation and give an lgbtq+ friend a roof over their head and a young person an opportunity for some stability in their life.

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR AWESOMENESS.

Cary Cronenwett & Ivy Jeanne

*All funds go straight to Peace House

**If you are interested in supporting Haitian organizations, please check out Jakmel Ekspresyons an arts based community learning center founded out of the need for a space of non-discrimination and in the memory of Flo McGarrell. More info at https://www.jecenter.org/about-us/

*The video above is from when Cary had the opportunity to visit Peace House in 2014 and is an excerpt from, Peace of Mind, a doc that features Peace House and is remembrance of Flo McGarrell and their relationship to the artist community in Jakmel. Watch full video here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/peaceofmind