I immigrated to the USA at 8 years old to become a Gator. My parents knew that America provided incredible educational opportunities for me and my 5 siblings so we came to America with UF on our minds. I walked across UF’s graduation stage three times, for my BA in 2012, my MA in 2014, and my PHD in 2016. During my time at UF I had the honor engaging in life-changing experiences. I was the lead instructor of several 250-student classrooms, I was honored with being inducted into the UF Wall of Fame, I was given a college wide and a university wide teaching award, but one of the most impactful things I engaged in was co-founding a nonprofit called P4H. With P4H I organized over 800 students traveling to Haiti during my time at UF. With support from the UF Projects for Peace we also began training hundreds of Haitian teachers.
Upon graduating from my doctoral program, I was offered teaching positions and other 6-figure salary positions, but I did something many thought was insane. I started working full-time for P4H. My life’s goal is to eradicate poverty in my country and I am doing that through P4H. Today, P4H trains teachers in 7 of Haiti’s 10 departments. We reach over 30k Haitian students every year with our training. We have 7 full-time staff in Haiti and continue to grow by 60% every year. Even more, we continue to travel with over 200 UF students yearly to Haiti to learn about sustainable missions!