Who Is Information

• WHO IS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• WHO IS_POSTED_ON: Jan 12, 2016
• Views : 1448
• Category : In Haiti » Non-Profit in Haiti
• Description : Hugues Bastien is the Founder of COCINA (Coalition of Children in Need), and Executive Director of Institution Univers.
• Location : Columbus, OH, United States
• Website : http://www.haiticocina.org

Overview

• Hugues Bastien, born in Haiti, moved to New York City in 1976 to pursue the American Dream, yet kept close ties with his native area of northeast Haiti. While serving as a youth leader and promoting missions in a Brooklyn church, he received a strong nudge from God to serve as a missionary. This calling eventually led Hugues to return to his hometown of Ouanaminthe.
  
  With the help of friends, Hugues founded the Coalition of Children in Need Association (COCINA) in 1990 as a U.S.-based 501 (c) (3) charitable organization to support educational and spiritual needs of children in Ouanaminthe, a community of 120,000. Hugues moved back to his hometown and in 1994 led a team to establish Institution Univers (i.e. school of the world) to provide quality education for children that would be lost in Haiti’s abysmal public system. The school enrolled 84 kindergarten students and three teachers in its first school year. Each year a grade level was added and school facilities constructed to keep up with the growing student body.
  
  In 2009 Institution Univers (IU) was named one of the top ten schools in the nation by the Haitian Ministry of Education. That same year, the school held its first high school graduation with fifteen students completing the 13th grade (Haiti follows the French system of 1st-13th grades). IU continues to grow, and in 2015 enrollment reached over 2,300 in pre-school through grade 13, and 58 students celebrated their high school graduation. Today, the school employs more than 200 full and part-time staff.