Sarodj Bertín, Miss Haití Universe 2010. Being the first representative of Haiti after 22 years of absence, participating in the MISS UNIVERSE pageant the same year shortly after the earthquake that struck the island in 2010.
Born on April 11 of 1986 at Port au Prince. Daughter of Jean Bertin and Mireille Durocher Bertin. Ever since she was four, her interest towards art started, taking Ballet classes, Modeling, Jazz, and Karate. While growing up, she started writing poetry. Writing, for her, was the purest form of expression of her thoughts and yearnings. All her childhood was enviable, right until the year 1995, when her mother was murdered, being this crime a huge blow for Sarodj, the whole family and country.
Mireille, Sarodj’s mother, was a woman highly admired by the Haitian people, she was a fighter; dreamed with having a country with more opportunities, being able to institutionalize the country and guarantee their rights to the haitian citizens. Bertin’s mother, who was an outspoken critic of then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was murdered on March 28, 1995 in Port-au-Prince. She was shot in broad daylight while being driven by a client, Eugene “Junior” Baillergeau, away from the U.S. military’s Camp Democracy headquarters. Baillergeau, who was killed along with Durocher Bertin, was in litigation with the U.S. military over damages a U.S. helicopter had allegedly done to his private plane.
After her mom passed away, her father, Jean Bertín, took charge of Sarodj’s and her three brothers’ education by being a father, mother, and friend at the same time. Being always present and making sure that the principles instilled to his children are their parameters for life. For Sarodj, her mother was her role model, always maintaining present her legacy, fighting for Haiti and a better tomorrow. After graduating from high school when she was seventeen years old, she gets into law school, something she interprets as “law is a science where reason has an invaluable value.” Currently, she finds herself studying her masters in Business and International Litigation Law.
After the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Bertin entered the Miss Haiti Universe contest and won.
She spent several months in Puerto Rico with the director of the Miss Dominican Republic and Miss Haiti franchises, Magali Febles, who took charge of her training for 2010 Miss Universe pageant. She represented Haiti in the Miss Universe 2010 beauty pageant held in Las Vegas on August 23, 2010. Bertin believed that competing in Miss Universe would give the people of Haiti a voice, stating, “there are many people who want to help but don’t know how and sometimes they need a voice to tell them what are the necessities of the people. I want the people, through me, to be who says what their necessities are.”
And in October 2012 she won the Reina HispanoAmericana 2012.
