Vanuela Fatal

Industrial Engineering ‘21

Vanuela Fatal wants to be an entrepreneur who creates opportunities for others. When Vanuela was accepted to study Industrial Engineering at the University of Quisqueya, she first had to explain to her family in Gonaives what exactly that meant. “They were delighted, but they asked me, ‘What is it?’” she says, laughing. “But industrial engineering was made for me, I love to get things done.”

She is grateful for the support from the HELP community, as she has learned to manage new responsibilities while living away from her family for the first time. “I’m becoming an adult,” she says. “University demands a greater level of responsibility.” Sharing a dorm with so many other students has also taught her lessons in tolerance, friendship, and personal growth. And with this growth and increased responsibility has come success -- Vanuela has maintained a spot on the Dean’s List since her second semester at university.

Vanuela hopes to work at an established business once she graduates, but her dream is to build her own company and create jobs in her hometown, an economically depressed city in central Haiti. "I'm someone who believes, who hopes," says Vanuela. "If you work for it, you can achieve it, whatever your goal. If I fail, I’ll step back to see how and where I failed, and then start again."