Valerie Bazelais, Founder of Beyond Travel and Beyond Travel Partners, is a graduate of Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities. She spent two years in the Peace Corps where she developed her wander lust and desire to support the work of community based organizations.  Since leaving the Peace Corps she has worked with community based organizations all over the world and has conducted research on poverty issues for the OECD. She is an avid marathoner and student of culture.

Vemione Cazeau, is a native of Haiti and has resided in the United States for nearly twenty years.  Her love of her native country, Haiti, and of her adopted country, the United States, has led her to coordinate many cross-cultural events that promote exchanges between the two countries.   She enjoys, cooking, road trips, and green living.

HAITI

Claude Beauciquot, Haiti Program Coordinator, lawyer, researcher is a true renaissance man.  He was hand-picked by the Haitian ministry of tourism in 1997 and trained to be part of special initiative to revive tourism in Haiti.  Nowadays he is the current head of KEKIPP, a micro lending organization which provides small business loans and training to poor families. He is also a consultant for ANFVE, a women’s organization working to ensure women’s rights within the Haitian judicial system.  Despite having grown up in rural Haiti to a poor family, he managed to complete his university degree.  His interests include archeology and beach volley ball.