Moueail is a community organization that aims to help newly arrived immigrants navigate the world they find in the United States, including healthcare, law, education, infrastructure, and arts and culture.
Its founder, Moise Lena Jean Louis, a former Miss Haiti International and Kingsborough Community College (KCC) alumna, launched Moueail in 2021. However, she had to shutter the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic and her own academic commitments while pursuing a graduate degree.
As a 2019 KCC graduate, Jean Louis announced the relaunching of Moueail (pronounced moo-ale) at the “Entrepreneur Showcase” held at her alma mater on Oct. 14-15.
Professor Michael Palladino, who oversees fashion courses within Kingsborough’s Department of Business, invited Jean Louis to the event to foster dialogue with fellow alumni, entrepreneurs, and potential collaborators, highlighting the fact that building a business is rarely a solitary endeavor.
As Moueail prepares to resume its operations in the coming days, Jean Louis took part in a two-day program titled “Concept to Creation to Consumer.” The event brought together creative people of different mediums and community members, offering them the chance to showcase their products and services, increase their visibility, and build connections within the Kingsborough ecosystem.
Jean Louis created Moueail based on her own experience as a newcomer. After arriving in the United States from Haiti in early 2009, she spent a significant sum, an amount that could have covered a large portion of her university tuition, to attend a private institution that, in the end, did not grant her any academic credit. This happened because she believed that the “private” sector was superior to the “public” one, a widespread perception in Haiti. She aims now to teach other immigrants how to integrate into a culture without missteps of that kind.
Moueail, represented by Jean Louis, participated in the program’s first and second day, presenting the work and discussing the company’s future with those in attendance. For Jean Louis, the invitation held a special significance: she was returning to the school both as an alumna and as the founder of an initiative. For her, the event represented a kind of full-circle moment within a community that had helped shape her early journey, a time when she was also taking her first steps toward integrating into American culture.
