Meet Garysson!

Garysson Céné began at the Center of Hope (Haiti) school in 2012 and is now one of our fifth graders.  Like many of our students, he comes from a large family.  He has eleven siblings; two of his younger siblings also attend the Center of Hope school.  Garysson works hard in school and is proud to have maintained a minimum overall GPA of 8.5 (out of 10).  His favorite school subject is math and he aspires to be an engineer.  As he wrote in 2015, he wants to be an engineer “so I can build a house for my mother and father to live in, to build a house that I can live in.”  

At recess, Garysson can be found with several other boys playing soccer.  He is very popular amongst his peers because of his great sense of humor.  He has also demonstrated excellent oratorical skills, which were on display at the dedication ceremony for the first new classroom building.  Below is the translation of the speech he gave to the over 200 classmates, parents, teachers, and community leaders assembled for the occasion:

Foreign guests and supporters

Honorable Board members,

Administrators, untired teachers, parents and all the construction workers herein present

Greetings,

I am proud to speak on behalf of Center of Hope students. We all remembered asking what about a future, is there a future for us at Maurique since our parents have nothing except poverty, joblessness. The way of life I just mentioned seem to permeate the entire landscape of the area where we live.  However, Center of Hope brought life, hope for everyone in the immediate area without prejudice (children, teenagers and parents and grandparents). When we started at the school, we were nervous, shy, we could not do anything for ourselves but now we can read, we have hope, life and aspirations like everybody else more privileged than we are thanks to the Center of Hope (Haiti).

Respect and Love for you who have made this possible. May God bless you infinitely from generation to generation.

Thank you so much!     

We are watching Garysson grow up into a remarkable young man.  Thank you for supporting him and the other children and giving him these opportunities!