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about marie
Marie Blaise is unlike most people in the world. She is spending her “golden years” in Haiti, loving on and caring for children with various developmental disabilities and special needs — children who were neglected and abandoned merely because because they were born with a disability into a voodoo culture that views them as “cursed.”
Before retiring in 2000 and moving back to Haiti, Marie lived and worked in New York City for many years as a school bus driver for children with special needs. Being around these children day after day brought her great joy. She always knew one day she would go back to Haiti, to help in some way.
In 2005, that calling that God placed in her heart became clear on a trip to visit a friend at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince. While she was there, she came upon a room where 11 children with developmental disabilities were being given the minimal care for survival. They weren’t there because they needed long-term medical attention, but because they had been abandoned by their families. Her heart was broken as she saw how poorly the children were being treated. One precious little blind girl, Silvie, was caged in a dog kennel. At that moment Marie knew what she had to do. She adopted Silvie and, soon after, was awarded guardianship of the other 10 children. She has made it her mission to give them the best life she possibly could.
In 2005, Marie founded the Maison des Enfants Handicapes, a Haitian registered NGO that provides permanent shelter, care, education, therapy, and a loving environment for children with moderate to severe intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind...”
