Who We Are
Zips for Haiti is a University of Akron (UA) student organization with the purpose of promoting awareness and creating engagement for UA students to help improve the quality of life of Haitian students.
Our Story
In December 2014, a group of fifteen students from the University of Akron traveled to Ouanaminthe, Haiti to a school called Institution Univers (IU). Our mission was to complete service projects while immersing ourselves in the Haitian way of life. We painted, played with the kids, toured the medical clinic, and taught English club. We witnessed first hand both extreme poverty and beauty...the experience changed us; Haiti changed us. We all learned more about ourselves in one week immersed in Haitian culture than we ever have at home. Unlike other student organizations, our founders have a piece of our hearts invested in Haiti.
We returned eager, passionate, and overwhelmingly motivated to help the Haitian students who had become our friends. Our first step was developing a student organization and working towards our goals of changing Haiti for the better in any way possible. We plan to replicate our experience in Haiti, making semi-annual trips possible for our interested members. By expanding our small group of founders to a large organization of our willing peers, we are confident that we can change the lives of Haitian students and make our members more globally aware in the process.
We returned eager, passionate, and overwhelmingly motivated to help the Haitian students who had become our friends. Our first step was developing a student organization and working towards our goals of changing Haiti for the better in any way possible. We plan to replicate our experience in Haiti, making semi-annual trips possible for our interested members. By expanding our small group of founders to a large organization of our willing peers, we are confident that we can change the lives of Haitian students and make our members more globally aware in the process.
Would you like to donate to our cause? If so click here! We appreciate your support for our endeavor to help the students of Institution Univers and Haiti.