Rosejina’s Story of Hope

Rosejina was one of the thirteen original kids found by Debbie and Bill Harvey in 2008. She was the oldest of the children at age 13 and already 7 months pregnant. Rosejina was violated by a close family member and became pregnant. When the same family member attempted to harm Rosejina’s younger sister, she ran away with her sister and found the other thirteen children. Not long after she ran away and found the other children, Debbie and Bill started Helping Haitian Angels (HHA). Rosejina struggled heavily with depression and anxiety during and after the birth of her son. When her son was 12 months old, he was adopted by a family in the US. Ten years later is a happy and healthy young boy and Rosejina will say it’s the best thing that could have happened for her son.

Through Rosejina’s adolescent years she struggled with her childhood traumas. She had anger issues, abandonment issues, and a difficult time connecting with others. Rosejina was difficult to approach for many years as she had a hard exterior due to her trauma. Because of these anger issues, she left HHA’s family homes at age 19 for a couple of years. HHA stayed in constant contact with her while she was gone. She tried to survive on her own but struggled significantly due to the realities of living in Haiti. At age 22, HHA invited her back to their program transitioning youths into adulthood.

Back at HHA, Rosejina began to truly flourish as she met regularly with a psychologist and began to develop healthy relationships with other young adults and parental figures. In this program she learned necessary life skills as well as many different vocational skills. Because she had a late start to school, she didn’t graduate high school until she was 25. She was the first HHA child to graduate high school and she did so at the top of her class. She is now in her second year of university studying administration with the dream of working in a bank. While at HHA she had a difficult time connecting with the house dad. She was, understandably, leery of male authority figures. But, a couple months ago she wrote him a three-page letter telling him how grateful she is to him for all his help and how he, and HHA, taught her to connect with people and follow her dreams.