About us
About Our Foundation
Currently C.H.F.F. works in Cité-Soleil, Haiti and supports three (3) locations: - Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine
- Ecole Mixte Petite Coeur de Jesus
- Centre de Formation Professionelle et Technique de Fontaine
Jose and Kareen Ulysse
Our Objectives
Improve access to quality healthcare and education in underserved , marginalized, underdeveloped communities.
Promote and support sustainable local development.
Enhance healthcare and education infrastructure.
Establish sustainable community health and education programs and centers.
Rebuild local workforces and economies.
Enhance personnel training and professional development.
Jose and Kareen Ulysse are a father-daughter duo who joined forces in 2018 to ensure the family’s private nonprofit hospital “Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine” (CHF), remained open with enough resources at its disposal to provide adequate medical care during the good and especially the chronically common bad times in the commune of Cité-Soleil, Haiti.
Mr. Ulysse founded the hospital in 1991, then a first-aid clinic, to provide access to primary healthcare to the residents of Fontaine Drouillard-Duvivier, Cité-Soleil, Haiti. Since its inception, CHF has primarily been self-funded by Mr. Ulysse, who invested up to 40% of his profits into the hospital. This approach though necessary, was and is not sustainable. Obtaining the resources needed for the hospital to operate efficiently has been a significant challenge.Despite Mr. Ulysse’s best efforts, in 2018, lack of access to a simple, fundamental hospital resource such as oxygen caused the death of his beloved mother. That devastating news moved her granddaughter Kareen Ulysse to carry on a new mission, “joining forces with her father to rally support behind the hospital to eliminate the occurrence of preventable deaths in the most underserved and impoverished communities in Haiti.”
In 2018 Kareen Ulysse founded Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Foundation (CHFF), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, to obtain strong support for the hospital while moving the institution towards sustainability.
ABOUT US
Centre Hospitalier De Fontaine ( Since1991)
The Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Hospital (CHF) is a private nonprofit hospital registered and licensed in Haiti. Founded by Mr. Jose Ulysse, CHF remains a trusted and preferred medical institution of the commune of Cité-Soleil, Haiti. CHF hospital’s mission is “First and foremost save lives.” compared to other hospitals, CHF never turned away a patient for lack of funding. The common practice of refusing to provide service has caused many preventable deaths, such as Kareen’s grandmother.
Our Services
- General Consultation
- Pediatric
- Surgery
- Internal Medicine
- Dental
- Labor & Delivery
- Home Care
- Mental Health Couns.
- Nutrition
- Emergency Room
- Pharmacie
- Laboratory
- X-Ray, Ultrasound
- Community Health
- Vaccination & Fam. Pln.
- 24-hour childcare
- Mobile Clinics
- Two New Health Centers
- Canaan and Delmas 3
Fontaine Drouillard-Duvivier Cité-Soleil, Haiti (History)
La Plaine du Cul-de-Sac residents have been living in dire conditions since the closure of the HASCO sugar factory in the early 1990s –the population’s primary source of income. As the factories closed, with no new opportunities, farming and raising livestock became the residents’ primary income source. Today, only traditional agriculture remains.
Currently, the primary economic vehicle of Fontaine Duvivier is the 31-year-old private nonprofit hospital Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine. 70 % of the CHF hospital’s staff is from the community of Fontaine or other communities within the commune of Cité-Soleil.
In recent years, the presence and growth of gangs have led to a complete disruption of the area’s social fabric. Children, for example, from the age of 14 and even younger, consider criminal activities more lucrative than education. The domino effect affects unsuspecting young girls and women who become victims of unspeakable injustice.
The Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine (which we can consider a community center) remains the beacon of hope, a source of life-saving services, a center of social life in this section of La Plaine du Culture-de-Sac, less than 1 kilometer from the center of the Cité Soleil. During periods of confrontation between the gangs, the hospital, against all odds, is often the only institution open.
Our Beliefs
Our Vision
We can all put our humanity into practice by making the world a little more humane for the least fortunate.
Our Mission
We believe access to quality healthcare and education is a human right and not a privilege. Together we can increase healthcare and education accessibility.
Our Partners
Our numbers that speak
Meet Our Founder
Kareen Ulysse
Founder/Executive Director
Gheriane Kareen Ulysse (“Kareen”) is the founder and executive-director of the Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine Foundation with five (5) years of experience working in high-risk, marginalized, underdeveloped communities such as Cité-Soleil, Haiti.
She is next in line to continue and scale up her father’s 31-year old hospital and workforce development legacy in Cité-Soleil, Haiti. The father-daughter duo’s work has been featured in Associated Press, ABC news, Le Point-Metropole, and Ayibopost, to name a few.
Kareen’s philanthropy philosophy is that “all philanthropic activities should promote self-sufficiency to reduce the beneficiaries’ dependence on aid through sustainable programs”.
