What if Einstein never went to school but made a living running a hot dog stand instead of formulating new ways to ponder creation that earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics? Sound preposterous? Not so much, if he’d lived in Haiti, where a college education is about as attainable as a moonwalk. There, poor, gifted, students are relegated to menial labor, and the world never benefits from their brilliance. The long-term effect of such a travesty is the loss of a potential talented, professional workforce that could turn the tide of Haiti’s floundering economy.
With support from Cross Catholic, Haiti’s hidden Einsteins are getting ‘H.E.L.P.’:
Full scholarships to Catholic Universities through the Haitian Education & Leadership Program—the equivalent of a moonwalk to students like Lourdwige Felizor.
Lourdwidge is one of four siblings. Her father, a carpenter, and her mother, a housewife, sacrificed to send her to an all-girls Catholic school, where she graduated at the top of her class. She had incredible potential, but her father could not afford to send her on to college. When H.E.L.P. saw her scores they invited her to apply for a scholarship. In her essay application, she writes: “If given a chance, I’d like to improve the medical health situation in Haiti and increase the number of doctors here, by becoming one. Once I become a doctor my dream is to give care to the most in need.”
Today, thanks to a H.E.L.P scholarship provided through Cross Catholic, Loudwidge is in her 5th year of medical school and plans to specialize in endocrinology. For Loudwidge, the moon looks closer every day.