Photo: Founder of REBUILD globally, Julie Colombino-Billingham © Courtesy of Deux Mains
By Holly Cambruzzi
Julie Colombino-Billingham didn’t arrive in Haiti with a business plan. She arrived with a suitcase, a humanitarian’s urgency, and the quiet belief that showing up matters.
In the days after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, she traveled to Haiti as a relief worker, believing it would be a short stay. Instead, the weeks stretched into years, and somewhere between the rubble and the resilience of the Haitian people, her life’s purpose took shape.
Haiti has long been framed through a single lens: disaster. But Colombino-Billingham saw something deeper, something the headlines rarely capture. She saw ingenuity. She saw artistry. She saw a culture that keeps standing, even when the ground has tried to swallow it whole.
One moment, in particular, became a compass point—an unvarnished truth offered by a Haitian woman who didn’t need sympathy, or saving, or another short-lived solution.
“I don’t need water, I need a job.”
It’s a sentence that cuts through the noise with startling clarity. It’s the sentence that helped Colombino-Billingham reimagine what “help” could look like when it’s built alongside the people who need it most.
Beyond the Rubble
That reimagining became Deux Mains, a fair-trade fashion brand created in collaboration with Haitian artisans. The name means “two hands,” and it’s more than poetic branding—it’s a philosophy. Behind every product is a person, a livelihood, and a story still in progress.
From the beginning, Deux Mains was designed to challenge the most common failure of aid: impermanence. Instead of temporary relief, the company focused on dignified work—living wages, safe conditions, and the kind of stability that allows families to plan beyond tomorrow.
At the heart of it all is a solar-powered, women-owned, Fair Trade-certified factory in Port-au-Prince, where Haitian craftspeople transform responsibly sourced materials into timeless leather goods. The work is meticulous, but the purpose is even more precise: to prove that “sustainable luxury” can be more than a buzzword. It can be a lifeline.
Where Purpose Meets Craftsmanship
In an industry where exploitation has too often been the default, Deux Mains built a different standard—one rooted in transparency, training, and long-term investment in people. Artisans earn living wages, receive health insurance, and have access to continued education and skills development. Over half of the workforce are women, many in leadership roles, shaping not only the products, but the future of the company.
Over time, the brand grew into an internationally recognized, employee-owned business, backed by organizations such as the United Nations, USAID, the Clinton Foundation, and fashion leaders including Kenneth Cole and Eileen Fisher. A partnership with Nordstrom helped expand visibility and increase sales—proof that values-led fashion can scale without losing its soul.
But Colombino-Billingham’s impact didn’t stop at what could be sold. She kept returning to the question at the center of it all: what does it take for a community to truly rebuild?
REBUILD: The Long Game
That question became REBUILD globally, Colombino-Billingham’s nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty in Haiti through education and job training. It’s a model built for the long haul—focused not on handouts, but on pathways.
The nonprofit invests in scholarships, tutoring, mentorship, and vocational training that lead to real employment. Its goal is to remove the barriers that keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and to replace dependency with opportunity.
This ecosystem, nonprofit and for-profit working hand in hand, has created measurable impact, but the most moving changes are often the simplest ones. In Haiti, proper closed-toe shoes are required for school uniforms. Without them, children can be turned away at the gate. Through this work, Colombino-Billingham and her team made and distributed nearly 10,000 pairs of Haitian-made leather school shoes to children across the country—shoes crafted locally, supporting local jobs, while opening classroom doors.
It’s the kind of impact that multiplies: one pair of shoes becomes attendance. Attendance becomes education. Education becomes possibility.
In telling her own story, Julie tells the story of so many whose lives were transformed by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Her clear and honest recollections put the reader at the epicenter of the most challenged and resilient culture in the western hemisphere.
A Book as a Bridge
Now, Colombino-Billingham has gathered this journey into a memoir: From Loss to Legacy: How a Fashion Business Rose From Haiti’s Rubble. Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book, the book is both a personal account and a wider invitation to reconsider what ethical leadership looks like.
“It’s more than just the story of a business,” Colombino-Billingham said. “It’s the story of identity, healing, and hope.”
That hope is not abstract in this book—it is tactile. It lives in hands that weave, stitch, cut, and craft. In keeping with that spirit, proceeds from all book sales will be donated to REBUILD globally—so the story doesn’t simply end on the page. It continues, hand in hand, in the lives it helps shape.
