At first glance, Palm Beach millionaire Frank McKinney might be mistaken for the lead singer of a 90’s era heavy metal or rock band with his long blonde hair, and leather coat, but no, as the founder of Caring House Project Foundation, a non-profit nearly a decade in existence, he is not into show business, but in the charity business, or to hear him tell it, the human capital business, as he and his staff strives to make people in Haiti self-sufficient, shelter-wise.

McKinney straddles two worlds. A dichotomy he calls it. He has made millions as a real estate magnate, building the world’s most affluent homes for the world’s wealthiest in the most opulent and exclusive neighborhoods in South Florida, on one hand. On the other hand, the organization he created, builds shelter in the Third World for Haiti’s most impoverished. Caring House (named after a soup kitchen for the homeless where McKinney once volunteered) has built dozens of home communities in Haiti, from St. Michel to Gonaives to Cap Haitian to lesser known cities like Paroty and Makandal. When Hurricane Jeanne hit Gonaives, Haiti in 2004, McKinney and his organization’s staff were one of the first to land to provide emergency shelter, and build villages for the newly homeless.

McKinney believes immensely in what he calls RODD—Return of Donor Dollars, a type of Return of Investment (ROI) for the charity world, giving the most output for donor money.

Between his hectic schedule as the founder of Caring House, his home building business, and his work as an author (he is the author of several books, whose sale proceeds go directly to his non-profit), Mr. McKinney graciously agreed to talk to us.

Out of all the countries in the world, what made you settle on Haiti?
The way we fell on Haiti was really a funny story. But when I first moved to Florida when I was a teenager [from Indiana], I didn’t have the benefit of pursuing a formal education. I got a job, and I was a sand caster at a golf course. So I was filling those little holes with white sand. And I had to get up at 4 in the morning. I had to be at that golf course working early. And I was the only white person working maintenance on a golf course. I was really proud to have such a job.

Listen, I don’t believe in the entitlement mentality, that’s sweeping the nation. I believe in working hard for it. Because I worked alongside Haitians, I earned the nickname the White Haitian. I’m very proud of that nickname, because Haitians are known for their work ethic, really hard workers. That nickname really stuck with me. I was just a maintenance worker at the time. There was no Caring House on the horizon. So fast-forward to 8 years later when we were doing a fundraiser for a group that was raising money to build houses in Honduras.

We allowed them to use one of my houses that we were building at the time to raise the money. When we were done, the host said, “Thank you for allowing us . to use your house to build 10 houses in the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” That’d be Honduras. Remember, I’m a linear thinker. I’m a simpleton. Not wholly educated. My response was, “Well, what’s the first poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and why aren’t we there?” The host was like, “Haiti”. So with that white Haitian mentality, toppled with the fact that Haiti was considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere was what got us started.

Since the earthquake, does your organization find itself being really overwhelmed? Do you find that your work has doubled.
We established a Program of Work, so we work from that Program of work, so obviously we’re not stretching outside of it. We don’t take on more than the program work mandates. The only time we felt a little overburdened was when we got into a search program of rescue. That obviously wasn’t part of our Program of Work. I don’t think that I’ve been more innovative or more responsive in the fact that we were on the grounds 40 hours after the earthquake hit. We’re not in the search and rescue business, but we’re in the build villages and security business. Yet we put together a search and rescue team within 40 hours of the earthquake stopping, we were on the ground pulling people from the rubble. And that was the only time we felt burdened beyond our Program of Work, but that didn’t stop us, believing that Haiti is a country full of beautiful suffering tremendously after this earthquake, and that we needed to get over there. We weren’t bringing food; we weren’t bringing water. We were pulling people from collapsed buildings. And that was important. We’re back on task now. We’ve build 5 villages since the earthquake. And our program for 2012 will have us building 2 more villages. So we’re dedicated. We love Haiti. I go there at least twice a year. Maybe not in my lifetime will we see a big difference, but it will make a difference to those people we provide shelter to.

What was the difference between when you first went to Haiti, compared to what you had been fed by the media.
You can imagine. Nothing can you for the assault on your senses when you get to Haiti, and that was before the earthquake. If you’re used to the things that the United States provides you, you the more shocked you’ll be. After you get over that initial assault on your senses, you’re prepared to do the little good that you can. My skin is pretty thick, so I wasn’t concerned or afraid. Believe me, I’ve been in other places where people tried to kill or kidnap me. But they’d never find me again. I never felt afraid for my life. The only thing that did really get to me early, was this feeling when I came back to the United States, was this overwhelming feeling of guilt when I took my family out to dinner. I struggled with that. I told someone who had been to Haiti, “You know I feel really guilty about spending my money on anything other than my basic needs. I don’t feel like going to the movies. I don’t feel like spending money on [luxurious ] things.” They [friends] helped me get over that. [They said,] “I want you to go out tonight. I want you to enjoy yourself. That’s the life that you’re living here. You keep doing what you’re doing in Haiti, but don’t allow that guilt to run or ruin your life,” and I’m glad I listened to them.

Those two villages that Caring House is going to be building, have you determined where they’re going to be?
I can tell you that one of them is going to be in the Jeremie area. I don’t know where the other one is going to be. It may be up in Cabaret. Those are two areas that we’ve worked in before and we’ve had good success.

How do you pick the location for the villages? Do you have a staff down there that scouts locations and see where there’s the most need?
We actually don’t. We don’t have a staff in Haiti at all, because of our Return on Donation that we gotta reference. We’re constantly getting requests for proposals, and requests for assistance. Some of our partners we’ve had for years, and they’ve been working there for years, so we’ll go to them, and we’ll be like, “We want to do another village”, so that’s how we decide where to do them. It’s hard to decide because there are so many places that need help.

If someone wants to help with the Caring House mission, obviously they can make donations, but what other ways can they help?
Right now we don’t take volunteers because Haiti has a really high unemployment rate. We can’t take a job away from somebody. We don’t even export materials, because I can buy all the stuff that we need down there from the locals, so that we’re kinda helping the local economy. Really, donations is what we need. I know how to stretch donation dollars really far. There are over different 65 donation options on our website ranging from a chicken to $8.50 all the way up to thousands of dollars. I had had one 26-year old guy just donate to build an entire village–$125,000. I’m not gonna send rice there. That’s not our thing. We’ll buy the rice when we get there. So it’s really the donations, that’s our lifeblood.

To make a donation to the Caring House Project go here.

You can see a video of McKinney in action below.

The Haitian community in the state of Minnesota is vibrant and growing. One of the leaders in that community is Haiti-born Beaudelaine Pierre, an active key member of Haitians InCommon, an organization that brings together students and professionals of Haitian descent.

Tell us about yourself.
My father and mother are retired school teachers; they have devoted their life to serving their community in St Michel ; I would see my father riding his horses from places to places to bring education to people. He was at that time, what we call today, a community organizer. Because of that, the first years of my life are so significant for me and shaped the woman I am today. I am myself a community organizer. I believe in the ability of people to control their own lives and love working with them on personal, cultural and community issues.

Over the last 10 years, I have focused my career on promoting gender equality in different projects I have been involved in in Haiti, as well as in Minnesota with the objectives of promoting the roles of women and girls for the creation of vibrant community. These last four years, I was able to expand my work and, as community organizer, to accompany groups, organizations, women and men to be the artisan of their own destiny. Last year, I served as program director of the Refugee and Immigrant Women for Change Coalition, a multi-ethnic coalition of seven nonprofit members, addressing systemic issues facing all refugee and immigrant women and girls in the Twin Cities; I am now working at the Women’s Initiative for self-Empowerment where, I have been hired to design a women’s program for immigrant women. One thing I am also very passionate about is books. I particularly enjoy discovering new writers who are able to use descriptions to open doors to other worlds. At a personal level, I do creative writing as a way to listen to my inner voice, and to connect with the universal nature of life. Caribbean writers hold particular interest.

How did you end up in Minnesota?
I entered at the University of Minnesota in 2009, as a Humphrey Fellow from the Humphrey Fellowship program, a program of the State Department for leaders and emerging leaders of developing countries; My two kids were visiting me a couple of days before the earthquake happened in Haiti. Due to the situation in Haiti, we have made the choice to stay temporarily in Minnesota.

Haitians InCommon brings Haitians and Haitian-Americans together in Minnesota.
The Haitians Incommon project is a program of the National Haitian Institute of Leadership, initiated by a group of Haitians living in the United States. The mission of the Institute is to accompany long-term progress in Haiti by bringing together Haitian government and its citizens in courageous dialogues and meaningful partnerships to solve community problems. This project started in 2010, when I began working with a small group of Haitians to establish a network of community leaders to support Haiti’s effort in the political, social and economic sectors. At that time the focus was in the Haitian government, with the idea to equip local leaders with skills and knowledge to manage and direct changes in their community. Three years later, that focus has not changed. We believe that good governance is a fundamental requirement for reducing poverty and achieving sustainable human development. And good governance is supported by the involvement and the commitment of various sectors of a nation. The Haitians Incommon bring to Haitians communities tools, principles and methodologies that allow people to have true conversation and build real collaboration. Our approach is based on the use of the Art of Hosting principles and methodologies focused on integrated participative change processes, methods, maps, and planning tools to engage groups and teams in meaningful conversation, and group-supported action for the common good.

We’ve started this work with the Haitian community in Minnesota. Like in many other immigrant communities, the Haitian community in Minnesota faces serious issues of conflicts. They are working alone and are disconnected from one another. The institutes have led several conversations among community members, and it is amazing to see true collaboration happening right now in the community. The thing is we all have wisdom and knowledge; no matter where we come from, we are all gifted; now it’s about how we allow co-creation, how do we open doors so people can feel they are part of the solution. When we call community member to be part of something they care about, true collaboration happen.

Do you ever think about returning to live in Haiti?
Of course, yes. The ultimate goal of the institute is to see how this model can work in Haiti; the results are very positive in Minnesota; we are trying to bring our expertise in different diaspora communities, as well as in Haiti, in a near future. Development, or progress, is about people, first. And talking about people relates to relationship, trust, and how we create spaces that allow everyone to feel part of the process. The things is, the world is facing great challenges today; no one can pretend have the solution. It has to be a collective effort.

Is the Haitian community in Minnesota pretty big?
The good thing about starting this work in Minnesota is that the community is very small, compare to diaspora in Florida or New York. It was important for us to start this project at very small level and create ways to expend it on a large scale. The Haitian community in Minnesota holds an approximate of 5,000 members.

What are some of the activities that the club is undertaking?
The institute organizes forums and conversations to bring people and community leaders together. We are now planning to integrate Haitian leaders in the US Midwest—Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, etc—into this work. We conduct training on art of hosting methodologies and principles, like Circle, World Café, Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry. We also conduct trainings on organizational leadership, program evaluation, and Community Building for other immigrant communities.

What have you noted about the Haitians living in Minnesota?
It is an extremely rich community, with very skilled and talented people. I am very grateful to be part of this community and to learn every day from the members.

Be sure to keep connected with the Haitian community in Minnesota, by visiting the Haitians InCommon page HERE.

[Beaudelaine Pierre photo credit: Twin Cities Daily]

Dantes Rameau is the founder of The Atlanta Music Project, an organization that fosters music in overall education. Rameau is a native of Ottawa, born of a Cameroon-born mother and a Haiti-born father. Music is as much of a part of him, as osteoblasts as part of his bones.

Rameau’s organization is recognized nationally for reviving the use of music in contemporary education in underserved neighborhoods. He put the organization together following his completion of the prestigious New England Conservatory’s Sistema Fellows Program and modeled it after El Sistema, a music program in Venezuela.

The Atlanta Music Project is now in its fourth year, and its 110 young artists perform 25 concerts annually. The young participants have performed for Atlanta’s Mayor at the Woodruff Arts Center, the venue the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra calls home. They’ve even performed at Philips Arena with Roger Waters of the classic group Pink Floyd, in front of an audience of 12,000.

You were born in Ottawa. What are your memories of growing up in that city?

Ottawa was a great place to grow up. It is a very diverse city. My friends came from all ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds and we celebrated our differences. To this day, I feel comfortable in practically all social settings, around all people and I attribute this to my experience growing up in Ottawa. This has come in handy for my work with the Atlanta Music Project, where a typical day might involve me pitching a corporate executive in the morning, teaching music at one of our sites in the afternoon, and meeting with the parents of one of our students in the evening.

Looking back on it, I realize now that Ottawa is a pretty small town. Big enough that I wasn’t too bored but small enough that I didn’t feel lost. In fact, Atlanta reminds me of Ottawa, because even though it is a much bigger city it still has a small town feel.

Who planted the seed for the love of music in you?

For this, I have to credit my parents. While they are not professional musicians, music was always playing in our house. Classical, jazz, Haitian, Salsa, R&B, rock – everything! We had a small piano in the house, and my parents played it often. Even now, I don’t think a day passes when my dad doesn’t play the piano.

They put me in piano lessons when I was six. I definitely enjoyed it and had a knack for it, but I didn’t always enjoy practicing. But my parents always encouraged me to practice, and as I got older I realized that the more I practiced the better I could play, and the better I could play the more fun I had playing and performing music. Eventually, I started playing the bassoon in high and joined my local youth orchestra.

The late Jerry Kupchynsky, a well-known music educator from New Jersey used to say that hard work is the true meaning of happiness. I would say that both my parents and music taught me the same lesson, and for this I’m eternally grateful.

Can you tell us even more about the Atlanta Music Project?

We ask potential students if they would like to play an instrument or sing in a choir during their after-school time. We tell their parents that their child must commit to coming to class five-days-per-week for two hours each day. If the family is OK with this, AMP gives them an instrument, a teaching artist, classes and performance opportunities. The kids don’t have to any musical experience and we don’t hold entrance auditions. Our philosophy is that with the proper support and dedication, any child can learn to play an instrument or sing in a choir.

The goal of AMP is two-fold: first to keep our students safe and off the streets after school. Second: through our rigorous music training, to develop in our students a certain resilience, confidence and ambition that will take them as far as they want in whatever field they want.

We have to raise a lot of money for this program – we’ve raised almost one million dollars in the past three years – but it is a sound investment. Because there are older and similar music programs in other cities, we know that students that stick with our program will graduate high school and go on to do great things. This is important since the high school graduation rate in the communities we serve hovers around 50%.

What have you observed through managing the program?

The raw talent present in our inner-cities is amazing and it’s a real joy to watch our young artists develop into confident and competent young people. We plan to expand our programming to different parts of Atlanta so that many more kids can have the opportunity to perform in high-quality music ensembles.

Your first name Dantes means “lasting, enduring, steadfast”, from its Latin origins. And I looked up the last name Rameau too. It means “branch” in French.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that about my first name, but those adjectives are definitely essential character traits. From now on, I guess will have to live by them everyday! My parents tell me they named me after the Italian poet Dante Alighieri and added the “s” at the end so they could pronounce it French: “Don-tez.”

You hold a Bachelor’s degree in Music from McGill University. Did you have your parents’ full support at the time you chose to undertake this degree program. I mean, we all know that sometimes parents have these expectations…

It’s kind of funny that after an entire childhood of encouraging me to do well in my music studies, my parents weren’t – at- first – too enthusiastic about me going to college to do a bachelors degree in bassoon performance. But at the same time, they couldn’t have been that surprised. They eventually supported my decision, as long I “did well and produced results.” I think they understood that the rigorous music studies I had taken all my life had developed in me the character traits to do well in life, no matter what field I pursued, so they just let me get on with it and figure it out for myself. And eventually, I did.

Classic music is obviously a big favorite of yours. What other sort of music do you like?

My parents played all kinds of music at home and my friends were a diverse group growing up. So even though I studied classical music, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy other kinds of music just as much. I love salsa, Haitian Compas, samba music and have taken salsa lessons before. I also played tenor saxophone in high school so I’m a fan of jazz. I enjoy hip-hop, especially the early 90s hip-hop, part of the so-called Golden Age of Hip Hop.

Also, African drum and dance is amazing. Seemingly simple, yet so complex. Our students at the Atlanta Music Project often do African drum and dance before they start their orchestral instruments as it helps them connect rhythm, movement and story to melody and performance. This is so important in communicating your music to an audience in a captivating way.

You’ve actually taught music as well—at the Yale School of Music Outreach program. What is the main principle that you try to get across to your students?

Yes, when I was in graduate school at the Yale School of Music I did some teaching in the New Haven Public School through the Yale School of Music’s Music in the Schools program. It was a fantastic experience, one that had a big impact on my future career because from that moment I decided that I would pursue both a performance career and an education career.

And when you teach…

When I teach, I try to use my students’ development as artists to show them the value of consistent, hard work over a long period of time. You see, for most kids, and I was the same as well, playing the first few notes on an instrument is a lot of fun. But then to improve and become more proficient, well, that requires work. But not just any kind of work. The kind of deliberate, repetitive, strategic and analytic practice sessions that develop expertise. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers talks about the “10,000 Hour Rule” – how it takes 10,000 hours of this kind of practice to get really good at something. We’re talking Bill Gates-good at computer programming or Tiger Woods-good at golf.

I’m not saying that every child I teach needs to become a professional musician, but if music can teach them how to appreciate deliberate, consistent practice, there isn’t much they won’t be able to tackle in life.

And music is the best tool to use?

The reason that music is one of the best tools to teach this principle is because if a young musician practices properly, he or she will get incremental, but fairly immediate results. A small reward for their work will go a long way in teaching them the correlation between hard work and success. And if they keep that up over many years, well they’ll get really good.

Instead of simply telling my students to “work hard and play the right notes,” I try to guide them in learning how to practice effectively and then their own musical progress shows them the results of their own hard work. Lastly, I always encourage my students to play expressively, with a beautiful sound. Once all the rehearsing is done and it’s showtime, it’s their chance to really enjoy their playing and engage the audience. Playing music is like sprinting: it requires plenty of training but the performance is over quickly. But when it goes right, there is really nothing that compares.

What’s do you think music’s overall place in education?

I think music has an essential place in education because it’s such a natural thing for kids to do. It’s fun! But it’s also important because it teaches kids how to figure things out, teaches individual and collective responsibility and accountability.

The tricky thing is that in education these days, everything kids learn has to be measurable and it’s difficult to measure the benefits of performing a concert. It’s not like reading, writing and math – you give a test and you can evaluate what a student has learned or hasn’t learned. This is why music and the arts are the first to go when school budgets get tight. But for all the testing we do, high school graduation rates and college graduations rates haven’t improved much, especially for low-income and minority youth. So perhaps, we need to start measuring more than just math and reading scores.

Recent research has shown that the results of standardized tests are not necessarily the best indicator of future success. For example Angela Duckworth, who is a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Genius,” has done some well-known research on grit. She found that students who scored well on a simple 12-question “grit test,” which contains questions like “I am a hard worker,” were more likely to get to the final rounds at the National Spelling Bee. At West Point Military Academy, the grit test – over physical tests, incoming grades and leadership potential tests – was also the more accurate predictor of which freshmen would complete the grueling summer training course known as Beast Barracks.

I think that if programs such as the Atlanta Music Project succeed in demonstrating how important music is to the character development of children, especially those coming from the most challenging socio-economic backgrounds, we will gradually see more support for music education from policy makers and administrators. As much as I would like it, a well-performed concert is not a strong enough argument, so it’s our job as musicians and teaching artists to show the value of our art in more measurable and relevant ways.

As a native of Canada, born of Haitian and Cameroonian parents, did you have any issues balancing all three identities?

Fortunately, I didn’t too much trouble balancing these identities. It helped that several of my friends also had parents from different countries. I have friends from childhood that easily spoke three or four languages growing up, simply because of their background.

As a child, I spent part of my summers in New York with the Haitian side of my family and the other part of the summer at an overnight summer camp in the middle of the province of Quebec with French Canadians. And my mom adopted her niece from Cameroon when I was in eighth grade. So in the end, I was very comfortable balancing all three identities.

One interesting thing was that after high school I began to be more conscious about the lack of African-Americans in my chosen field of classical music. That didn’t have a direct effect me because it had always been that way my whole life, I just hadn’t given it much thought until college. In college this phenomenon caused me to question why this was the case and, given the opportunities that music had afforded me, what I could do to afford the same to other minorities.

When was the last time you went to Haiti?

I have never been to Haiti. I would love to go though. Most of my Haitian side of the family is in North America but my dad’s generation speaks nostalgically about growing up in Port-Au-Prince, so it’s important to me to learn and see my origins in person. Same goes for Cameroon, my mom’s side. I plan to visit both countries in the future.

Have you ever thought of doing a counterpart of your Atlanta music project in either Haiti or Cameroon?

The thought has crossed my mind, absolutely. I know that Haiti recently launched an El Sistema-inspired program with the government’s support, which is fantastic. I’m not sure what the music education scene is in Cameroon, but I assume there are local music programs there too. I would love to lend my support as it is needed to any local effort to bring even more music to kids in Haiti and Cameroon. As it relates to the Atlanta Music Project, I think doing an exchange, where Atlanta Music Project students go to Haiti or Cameroon and vice-versa, would be a life-changing experience for all the kids involved.

You were among The Sistema Fellows at the New England Conservatory and you got to go to Venezuela. What was that experience like overall?

Venezuela was amazing. The love that the Venezuelans have, not only for classical music, but for traditional Venezuelan music, rhythm and dance is infectious. I saw amazing youth orchestras and choirs, but I also saw amazing ensembles of traditional Venezuelan instruments, like the cuatro and the Venezuelan harp.

In Venezuela, the youth orchestras have a very important role in the community. Elected officials must be able to explain what they will do to support the local youth orchestras. I believe people there see music not only as a fun activity, but also as a way to build community and good citizens. It is definitely the youth orchestra capital of the world!

But it took Venezuela’s El Sistema almost 40 years to get to where they are today! They’ve been developing free, after-school music programs for all kids, rich and poor, since 1975. I hope that the founder of El Sistema, Jose Antonio Abreu, eventually wins the Nobel Peace Prize. He certainly deserves it.

Dantes Rameau poses with his parents.

Do you sing as well?

Singing is not my strong suit. [Laughter] I have a very good ear, of course, but when it comes to actual singing, like me singing, let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m an instrumentalist.

Any counsel for those who would like to follow the same career path as you?

A career in music is a beautiful one. My advice to young people that want to follow this path is to make sure to dedicate the time to developing their craft. But in addition also take the time to discover what role in your community you want to play as a musician. These days the existence of many symphony orchestras is being second-guessed. Great musicians who figure out how to support the development of their community, alongside businesses, schools and other non-profits, will always be successful.

And for the parents of budding musicians: don’t be afraid to encourage your kids to go into music, especially if they’re good at it. Music can be a ticket to college scholarships (saving you a lot of money!) where a student can double major. They’ll get the opportunity to travel and experience the world. Then, if they choose to, they can use their degree to get a job, go to graduate school in law, medicine, business etc. I tell our Atlanta Music Project parents all the time: not all my friends who studied music with me are making a living in music – but not one of them is unemployed.

What’s next for you?

I’d like to scale our work with the Atlanta Music Project. We’ve been able to demonstrate what our organization is capable of with 110 students, so the next step is to bring together funders and partners to bring our program to more students and neighborhoods.

I’ve learned that music is a very powerful tool for good and all young people deserve the opportunity not only to be exposed to it, but also to experience it and excel at it themselves.

[Photos: Rameau and his parents by Carlton Mackey; Conducting Atlanta Music Project students pic by Anthony Alston Jr; Rameau with the bassoon by Lauren Thomas.]

Visit the Atlanta Music Project Website| Donate to the Atlanta Music Project| Facebook| Twitter | Read Dantes Rameau’s Blog | Check out the Atlanta Music Project on YouTube|

Independent filmmaker Easmanie Michel is a woman who won’t sit still creatively. Her short film Minutes to Say Hi was recently screened at the Haiti Cultural Exchange Haiti Film Fest. The Harlem-based filmmaker has Caroline’s Wedding, another cinematic baby on the horizon. The feature is based on a short story written by Edwidge Danticat and Michel has already signed Vicky Jeudy of the Netflix series “Orange Is The New Black” as part of the cast. I took this time to discuss the film with the NYU grad, as well as the significance behind her handle on social media…Ugly Girls Can Rule The World.

Kreyolicious: If you had to do things over, would you have skipped college and just worked in the film industry?
I would not have skipped school because I think my studies in English literature, cinema theory and philosophy have given me a nuanced understanding about the topics I’ve wanted to address. I am intrigued with human consciousness, and my studies have enhanced my desire to explore, visually, the reasons people make certain choices in their lives. I have considered and encountered the more abstract textures of human experience through my studies.

Easmanie Michel having a squad moment with Edwidge Danticat, on whose short story her upcoming film “Caroline’s Wedding” is based on.

Kreyolicious: Your handle on social media is “Ugly Girls Can Rule the World.” Why that choice? And how come ugly girls run the world?
There is something about that handle that is appealing to me because it forces people to think about what is ugly and the nature of what is considered beauty in a cultural context. Some people are offended by the title and someone once told me it was “disingenuous.” And yet others understand that in some way there is power in reclaiming the word.

Perhaps if we change our relationship with it, it may also challenge aesthetic ideas of beauty. Our culture promotes an aesthetic point system that can often be demoralizing; there is an image of perfection that dominates our society. I feel this handle is “subversive,” in so far as it challenges that.

Kreyolicious: One of your next projects is Caroline’s Wedding with Vicky Jeudy. How is that coming along?
The project is coming along. Last year we participated in the Women at Sundance Financing and Strategy Intensive. We are still looking to capitalize the production through fundraising and investment.

I am looking to shoot the feature by the end of the year. We currently have a website where updates about the film can be found at www.carolinesweddingthefilm.com. Also, the project is fiscally sponsored by New York Women in Film and Television.

[Main Photo Credit: Tequila Minsky]

If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation to Caroline’s Wedding, the upcoming film from Easmanie Michel, you can do so by clicking here: