2021 Recruitment: Adapting to Challenges

Since the fall of 2019, the HELP campus has been locked down, shut down, and every situation in between. While the situation in Haiti is still tense and difficult, there is new life at HELP as we have just welcomed 50 new freshmen (following last year's admissions hiatus due to Covid) and are hoping to resume full, in-person activities by mid-October.

Student and intern at the recruitment office Juste-Coeur Beaubrun (economics ’24) describes the difficulties of recruiting this year, “The hardest part was when we had not yet decided if we were going to accept a freshman class this year. It was very hard for me because I knew that some candidates had been suffering for more than a year, and they had no other viable opportunities. They called me almost every day.” 

Students work in the recruitment office

Still, the recruitment team worked to spread the word to secondary schools across the country. Normally, the team would visit each of Haiti’s 10 provinces talking to 120,000 students at 1,000 schools. This year, the combination of local violence and COVID-19 limited the team’s ability to travel and so HELP called school principals, held online information sessions, and did a media tour with the goal of making sure eligible students had the information they needed to apply.

By the spring, HELP had received 480 applications and approved acceptance of 50 freshmen. Again, Covid-19 limited our ability to welcome top candidates to the HELP center for the traditional selection period and since armed gangs control the roads to the south, students from the southern peninsula were unable to travel to HELP even for just an interview. So, in July, six HELP staff and one student flew to Les Cayes, centrally located in the southern region, to interview the top candidates from there.

The first week in September, 50 students accepted their scholarships at HELP and officially joined the HELP family! To fully welcome new and returning students, HELP hosted a vaccine clinic in partnership with the department of public health. With 150 vaccines administered, we hope to begin in-person HELP classes & activities in two weeks.