About NHSI

Noe Jilles is from the Northern Haiti hilltop community of Dondon. He is a talented builder, leader, and is driven by the desire to help his people.

From 1998 through 2002, Noe worked in construction in South Florida, sending money back to his wife and four children in Haiti. In 2002, he returned to Dondon and pursued his dream of building his community's first church and school in the rural area of Laguille, three to four miles away — an area home at the time to several traditional Vodou practitioners. Noe's drive to return was rooted in his desire to improve his community and raise the educational level of its children.

Noe travels from Cap-Haïtien to Laguille two to three times a week, sometimes through the darkness of night and barefoot, splitting his time between earning a living in the city and supervising the school he helped build. Joy and Hope of Haiti, a Canadian charity, financed construction of the Laguille school under Noe's supervision. Many of its 102 students — and some of its teachers — walk up to an hour and a half each way to attend, and impassable creeks and mudslides during rainy season can keep them from reaching school at all.