Melissa Cassandre Raymond is a social worker of Haitian origin. She studied social work at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the State University of Haiti (UEH). During her academic career, she volunteered with a group of student researchers at the Faculty of Human Sciences (FASCH), which included students from various fields at the State University of Haiti known as the Research and Social Action Group (GRASO). While active in this group, she gained practical experience in awareness projects with organizations in the country on topics ranging from gender-based violence (GBV) to environmental protection and food security. Simultaneously, she conducted surveys with Panos Caribbean and CARICONSUL Group, a group of researchers and statisticians in Haiti. These surveys primarily involved women victims of rape in the Artibonite region. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she chose to pursue a master’s in Sociology, which she is currently undertaking at the University of Ottawa. Currently, she is an intern at the Observatory of the Afro Youth Summit. In her research fields, she is particularly interested in the relations of coloniality of power, knowledge, and being, where she analyzes, from a decolonial perspective, the proletarianization process in Haiti.
