THE FUTURE IS NOW

Erve Joseph (l.) and Edgard Milace (r.)

This morning I dropped Erve Joseph off at his college class, this is something my wife and I do every other week when we are available. Erve is from Haiti and at 23 is one of Canaan's first generation of students and the second to attend college in the U.S. Erve has been here since last summer and is in his second semester at Indiana Tech college in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Later on after he gets some of his basic classes out of the way he will transfer on to possibly Indiana Purdue University Fort Wayne or maybe a college in another state, he hopes to go to medical school eventually.

Erve is a very bright student and at this point is maintaining straight A's in his classes, to me he represents the future of Haiti . Every since I went to Haiti 10 years ago I have heard the argument that we shouldn't encourage the flow of Haiti's best and brightest. I don't agree.

If Haiti is to ever change for the better we need to concentrate on the three E's, Education

Economic expansion and entreprenerual development . Young people like Erve have the best chance of implementing these changes.

Several years ago he told me if he ever had the opportunity to acheive his dreams of a college degree and became a doctor he wanted to make the same opportunity available to others in his country to reach out for their goals. Many times on my travels to and from Haiti I have talked to Haitians who have the desires and sometimes the means from having been in America to start up businesses, to teach, to doctor, to build factories, to be engineers and all the other things it takes to move forward and develop a country. That to me is the hope for Haiti.