Ninaj Raoul

Ninaj Raoul is a co-founder and community organizer at Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR) in New York, an organization founded in 1992 to respond to the human needs of Haitian refugees and immigrants in the U.S. fleeing persecution. Through education, community organizing, leadership development and collective action, she works with HWHR members to empower themselves as they struggle for social, economic and racial justice. HWHR has conducted leadership and organizing trainings for adult literacy learners, and developed brave culturally-grounded healing spaces to engage in survivor informed practices to face trauma and daily challenges. Her current work with HWHR involves local organizing and advocacy efforts for refugees/asylum seekers, undocumented youth immigrants, TPS holders and survivors of violence, to build power and resistance as part of a larger liberation movement. Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees was a plaintiff in the NAACP-LDF lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for its decision to rescind the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants. 

For 30 years, Ninaj has been centrally involved in various local to global social justice movements, particularly immigration, police brutality, worker rights, language rights, gender justice, youth leadership development, racial justice and sovereignty rights for Haiti. Her work includes membership on boards Grassroots International, Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), Martin Baro Initiative, Petra Foundation, and New York Immigration Coalition, and steering committee for Domestic Workers United and Kongo Haitian Roots. She is a Petra Foundation Fellow, a recipient of several awards including the TakeRoot Justice Community Leader Award (2022), New Sanctuary Coalition Movement Award (2017), Union Square Awards, the National Organization of Woman Susan B. Anthony award, and the Dr. Antonia Pantoja Bilingual Advocacy Award.