Hinche Scholar Berry Riché Speaking to St. Brendan's Congregation

Berry Riché is a Hinche scholar attending school at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, VA.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch (article link: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/commentary/2011/nov/13/tdcomm01-seeds-from...) ---

The oldest of six children, I am Berry Riche, and I am a young man from the town of Hinche in rural Haiti. A high school graduate, I was studying computerized accounting when an earthquake rocked Haiti and destroyed my school.

At 4:53 pm on Jan. 12, 2010, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake shook my country. One of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Haiti, the quake reduced our businesses, universities, hospitals, markets, hotels and government buildings to rubble, instantly taking lives and destroying almost everything.

The government estimates that nearly 230,000 people died, another 300,000 were injured, and more than 1.5 million were displaced when their homes were damaged or destroyed. Our public parks, our stadiums, our streets became hobo jungles.

In the years before the quake, my country was fighting an economic crisis in which poverty was bashing the gates of most Haitian families.

In Haiti, less than 30 percent can read and write, and less than 20 percent get jobs that can support a family. Of high school graduates, fewer than 5 percent can go on to university. Haiti is a nation that cannot develop without help.

Haiti wants to be self-sufficient. It is a long road with many detours.

My education is the only tool I have to prepare my future and to help my country. I wish to earn a B.S. in business administration and to use that education at home.




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I am now in Richmond, studying at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. I am here because a young man, Danny Yates, knows that America is a place of possibility and generosity. Danny started the Hinche Scholars program with the I Have a Dream Foundation to make possible the dream of improving Haiti from within.

Ken Henshaw, president of I Have a Dream, and Danny: I would like you to know that by creating the Hinche Scholars program you have shown that identity is not in what we do for ourselves, but in what we do for others. You have given of yourselves to help me give back to Haiti. Thank you and God bless you and all the Richmonders who have supported the Hinche Scholars.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, "Men are born to succeed, not fail." The Hinche Scholars program is giving me the chance to succeed and to aid in the rebuilding of my country.

Ken and Danny need help to keep the Hinche Scholars program funded. Please know that your support will be like a seed you plant here in Virginia. We will transplant it by going back to Haiti, where it will grow, blossom and bear fruit to feed and transform many lives in Haiti.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• St. Brendan's