Student Organizations

Mario Joseph has been called Haiti’s most respected human rights lawyer by the New York Times, representing the disadvantaged, victims of political violence, and political prisoners.  Having grown up poor in rural Haiti, he learned firsthand how the inability to enforce fundamental political, civil, economic and social rights condemns poor people to generations of poverty.  Once he was able to obtain a legal education – through hard work, sacrifice, and good fortune – Joseph resolved to put his new privileges at the service of his country’s poor, to help them enforce the rights they need to climb out of poverty.  Now he serves as the voice of people who have no voice, oftentimes at great physical risk.  As a lawyer, organizer, activist, educator and spokesperson, Joseph also empowers others who work for justice in Haiti – giving some people the courage they need to act, and others the patience they need to act non-violently. By helping Haitians enforce their civil rights, including their rights to organize, to send their children to school, and to free and fair elections, Joseph is making profound social changes.