From Crisis Response to Community Resilience

16+ years of partnership, local leadership, and healing in Haiti

Following the devastating 2010 earthquake, CMBM began working alongside Haitian communities and professionals to respond to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. What began as an emergency response following one of the most devastating disasters in Haiti’s history has evolved into a long-term commitment to strengthening local capacity for healing, resilience, and compassionate leadership.

Haiti’s crisis didn’t end when the earthquake did

Since 2010, Haitians have continued to face additional hardships due to climate change, political instability, economic hardship, displacement, and escalating violence, which continue to expose individuals and communities to repeated sources of stress and trauma.

This evolving reality has required a different approach to mental health—one that recognizes that many Haitians are not simply recovering from past trauma, but are living with ongoing adversity.

Building Local Leadership

CMBM’s work evolved from direct emergency relief toward training Haitian professionals and community leaders to carry the work forward themselves. Through the Mind-Body Skills Groups and our train-the-facilitator model, Haitian psychologists, physicians, nurses, educators, social workers, community leaders, and other professionals have developed practical skills that they can bring back to their own institutions and communities.

These numbers tell one part of the story. But the deeper impact lies in the network of Haitian professionals who continue to carry this work forward.

Helping Haitians Build Lasting Resilience

CMBM teaches practical, accessible tools that can be integrated into everyday life: breathing exercises, meditation, guided imagery, mindful movement, expressive drawing, and supportive group dialogue.

These practices do not remove the external challenges facing individuals and communities. Rather, they help people strengthen their capacity to regulate stress, reconnect with themselves, support one another, and respond to adversity with greater awareness and flexibility.

Care for the Caregivers

One of the most important lessons we learned from CMBM’s work in Haiti is that:

Caregivers also need care.

Healthcare professionals, educators, psychologists, social workers, police officers, religious leaders, humanitarian workers, and community organizers are often exposed to the same violence, uncertainty, loss, and displacement as the people they serve.

When caregivers develop greater capacity for self-awareness and emotional regulation, they are better positioned to provide compassionate care, make thoughtful decisions, build healthier relationships, and create environments where others feel supported and safe.

One Person Can Start a Ripple

For every person trained to facilitate Mind-Body Skills Groups, many lives can be impacted. As facilitators bring this work back to their communities and the populations they serve, healing and resilience grow.

The goal isn’t simply to provide services to a community.

It’s to strengthen a community’s capacity to care for itself and for one another.

“After the loss of my house in Hurricane Matthew, I had lost hope in life. I thought I was going crazy. The CMBM team gave me hope. Thanks to them, I know I have a future.”

— Jacques, Teacher, Department of Nippes

The Work Continues

With the generous support of the Gordon and Llura Gund Foundation, CMBM-Haiti continues to bring much-needed psychosocial support to children and adults affected by ongoing violence, economic hardship, and natural disasters.

Our team continues to teach and lead workshops to Haitian professionals who can bring mind-body skills into their own communities as a way to help people navigate trauma, stress and ongoing adversity.

“The beauty of this work is that it allows people to rebuild from the inside and it gives them a sense of hope. It sounds so little, but it’s everything.”

— Regine Laroche, CMBM Faculty, Port-Au-Prince

Our goal is not simply to respond to crisis, but to strengthen the capacity of communities to heal, connect, and care for one another, now and into the future.

Our work continues, and so does the hope.