Governance

Agronomist Ludsonde Lafontant (Loulou) is the Rector and Chief Officer of UNIF. He manages UNIF with the assistance of the Rectorate of UNIF, which is composed of three Vice-Rectors, two Department Directors, and the Executive Secretary of UNIF.

Lafontant was born in Port-au-Prince but attended primary and high school in Fondwa. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Agronomy from the Universidad Agraria de la Havana in Cuba. He later completed his Masters in Agronomy in Brazil at the Universidade Estadual De Ponta Grossa, where he specialized in smallholder farming and completed his thesis entitled, “Quality of Local Seed Conservation in Different Conditions.”

After securing his Masters degree, Lafontant returned to Fondwa in 2017 to work at UNIF as a professor, where he soon became the Dean of Agronomy. During the in 2018-2019 academic year, he joined the UNIF Executive Committee and was named Rector for the 2019-2020 academic year.

He speaks Creole, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Speaking about UNIF, Lafontant states, “I work for UNIF because I believe it gives people in rural Haiti the ability to see that they can achieve a quality professional training to advance their lives…I  also work for UNIF because I feel like it is a chance for me to give back to the community that raised me, to the community that gave me so much as a child.”

Rector Lafontant has identified the following priorities for the near future:

• Make UNIF more sustainable and independent.
• Facilitate excellent communication between UNIF and partners.
• Revise the UNIF curriculum to better realize our mission of sparking development in rural areas.
• Write a five-year strategic plan for UNIF in collaboration with our partners.
• Develop a full manual of procedures for UNIF.
• Reinforce our local and international partners. and,
• Ensure that UNIF works more closely with the Fondwa peasantry.

The Board of Trustees of UNIF exercises all power and authority over UNIF in accordance with its mission, its statutes, and its legal status as a private, Haitian, non-profit university. The Board of Trustees delegates all managerial power over the university to its Rector, who serves as chief officer of UNIF, and as the chief liaison between the Board and the university’s staff.

It is also important to note that UNIF has a sister organization named uFondwa-USA, a 501(c)3 registered non-profit in the USA who has as mission to fundraise for UNIF in Haiti. It is run by its own board in partnership with UNIF

UNIF-Haiti Board Members, Roles, and National Origin:

• President of the Board: Fr. Joseph Philippe, CSSp, Haitian and founding member
• Mme Myrtho Casseus, Treasurer, PhD in Administration, Haitian
• Lorenzo Rovelli, Secretary, Swiss
• Mrs. Maryse Jonas, Board Counsel, Haitian, Lawyer and Judge
• Rodrigue Constant, Assistant-Secretary, Haitian 
• Max Delices, Comptroller, Haitian, Director of Haitian Electoral Committee
• Dr. Elizabeth Brea, Venezuelan and Medical Doctor
• Edner Charles, Haitian and UNIF Graduate
• Edrix Alcimé, Haitian, UNIF Graduate, and Veterinarian

Father Joseph B. Philippe, CSSp, has been a visionary leader in the struggle to promote economic opportunities for Haiti’s economically impoverished rural population for more than three decades.

Father Joseph is the founder of the Peasant Association of Fondwa (APF) and has been its coordinator since 1988. In 1996 he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St Antoine of Fondwa. Among other things, the Sisters operate a K-12 school in Fondwa where over 500 children receive their primary and secondary education each year. He also helps APF manage numerous commercial projects, including an agricultural, reforestation and animal husbandry project, a guest center/educational tourist program and a restaurant, as well as a cement store and a scaffolding rental company. In 1994, Father Joseph founded Fonkoze to bring financial inclusion and development services to the poor of Haiti. In 2004, he was a founder of Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze (Fonkoze Financial Services), which spun off Fonkoze’s financial services to form Haiti’s largest microfinance institution. He is a member of the Board of that entity, as well as a Board Director of Fonkoze USA.

In 2004, in recognition of the bicentennial of Haiti’s Independence, he was the primary force behind the founding of the University of Fondwa (UNIF). Father Joseph continues to serve as President of the Board of Trustees of UNIF. He also serves as an ex-officio board member of the University of Fondwa USA Inc. (uFondwa USA), a U.S. 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that supports the work of The University of Fondwa (UNIF) in Haiti.

Finally, in 2017 Father Joseph created the Father Joseph Network (FJN) as an umbrella organization bringing together all the entities he founded to make an even greater impact in transforming the lives of the poor in Haiti.

Father Joseph was born in Fondwa. In 1982, he became a member of the Spiritan Catholic Holy Order (Holy Ghost Fathers) and was ordained as a priest. From 1993 to 2001, he was a Bursar for the Spiritan Order, and a member of the Spiritan Order’s Executive Council. He has also served as a member of the Spiritan Order’s training program team for seminarians since 1995. In 2004, Father Joseph was elected the Provincial Superior for the Haiti province of the Spiritan Fathers and served a three-year term. Father Joseph holds an undergraduate degree in commercial accounting from the “Ecole de Commerce” André Laroche, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and a Master of Divinity degree with special studies in liturgy and politics from Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He has also studied credit cooperative management at the Centre Lebret in Paris and attended training in banking administration at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

In 2009, he received an Honorary Doctorate Degree at the University of San Francisco, California for his work on humanitarian and development aiding the poor. Father Joseph was named Social Entrepreneur of 2010 for Latin America by the Schwab Foundation. Through his leadership roles in APF, Fonkoze, Fonkoze Financial Services, UNIF and the Spiritan Community, Father Joseph continues to promote advocacy and action to alleviate rural poverty in Haiti. His vision of peace, economic opportunity, and collaboration is one of hope for all of Haiti and those who work for its advancement. When he is not travelling to the U.S. and Canada for one of the institutions he founded, Father Joseph resides in Port au Prince, Haiti.