Isemonde Inspires
In late August, we invited a group of 51 students – our largest incoming class ever – to HELP, along with their parents, to receive a formal welcome to the program not only from the staff but also from the very first HELP student, Isemonde Joseph Balthazar. This was a unique opportunity for our newest scholars to learn about the origins of HELP and for Isemonde to share her inspiring story, which is a testament to the impact of higher education in enabling young people from impoverished backgrounds to succeed against seemingly insurmountable odds.
As many of you know, Isemonde grew up in the slum of Cité Soleil in a family of six children that struggled to survive on her parents’ salary of $25 per week at a local factory. Isemonde earned a scholarship to secondary school and graduated near the top of her class. She was interested in medicine from a young age – she says her dolls were her first patients – but costs for university made her dream of becoming a doctor impossible. Instead, she took the entrance exam for a reputable secretarial school and earned the highest score, qualifying her for a 75% scholarship, but she still couldn’t afford the remaining $30 she needed for registration and books. So she asked her former English teacher, Conor Bohan, for a loan. After learning that Isemonde’s real passion was medicine, Conor offered to cover her fees for the entrance exam at Haiti's Catholic medical school. Isemonde passed, Conor paid her tuition for the first semester, and HELP was born.
At first HELP covered only tuition and books, which meant that Isemonde sometimes had to walk over four miles each way to school and go without lunch. Her house flooded in the tropical rains and her Cité Soleil neighborhood became a battleground for warring gangs. Despite all this, due to her remarkable perseverance, Isemonde was one of only 40% of her entering class to graduate on time. After receiving her M.D. in 2005, Isemonde immediately found work as a staff physician at the renowned GHESKIO Center, a pioneering HIV/AIDS research and treatment facility in Port-au-Prince. At a graduation party, she met Ronald Balthazar, the cousin of a classmate, who became her husband in 2007. The couple currently lives with their two young children in Boston, MA, where Ronald completed his graduate studies and now works as an electrician.
Isemonde’s last visit to Haiti was in 2010, when she volunteered for two months following the January earthquake. Since then, let alone since her student days, HELP has seen many changes, including the addition of our English, Leadership, and IT courses, dormitories, career services, thesis support, and study abroad programs with Dartmouth College and Cornell University. Additionally, most of our staff and students had never met Isemonde, who is in so many ways responsible for their presence at HELP today.
“I urged the students to take advantage of all the services they have that I did not and to dedicate themselves fully to every task," Isemonde says. "As the story of HELP shows, we never know what the results of our hard work will be.”
“Hearing Isemonde really affected me,” says Isabelle Joseph (education ’16). “The story of her success shows clearly the power of education and determination.” Country Director Garry Delice, who also taught Isemonde in high school, says, “Her story is so powerful because I think every HELP student can recognize him or herself in Isemonde’s experiences. What she shared in her speech covered the concepts of our four-year leadership curriculum in 30 minutes!” Leadership Program Manager Meaghan Balzer also noted how Isemonde’s advice to the next generation of HELP students reinforces the program’s guiding principles. “She encouraged them to go everywhere and do everything, and not be afraid of delving into experiences or speaking up because of where they come from.”
Besides being an inspiration for staff and students, Isemonde met with a group of HELP graduates to discuss ways of expanding the impact of the alumni network, and visited the SAKALA after-school program in Cité Soleil that was started by her former neighbors and high school classmates, Daniel Tillias and Herode Laurent. “Because of HELP, hundreds of poor students can sit in university next to wealthy students and become the best in the class,” she says. “HELP not only gives young people the opportunity for an education, but also promotes leadership, community participation, and the idea that we can work together to help solve Haiti’s difficult issues. I can see a brighter future not only for the students but for their families, friends, and mother Haiti.”