Kichemy Dorcena

NAAHP Haitian American Leadership Award Scholar in Honor of Dr. Ernest Barthelemy Grant

There are two things we cannot choose in life: our birthplace and our parents. As we grow up, we may or may not like them, depending on the circumstances. Coming from a household of six people in the poorest country of the West Hemisphere, I knew my chance to succeed was not high. Even though balancing academic life and personal responsibilities was tremendously hard, I have always tried to pursue my passions and help my community. I was born in Delmas and raised in Pétion-Ville. I moved to the United States last year to start my college journey. My parents are Christians – I go to church regularly every Sunday. Thanks to them, I am also a Christian, and I take the opportunity to invest myself in church activities, such as theater and piano performances. I was raised in a family that is below the middle class. That said, my mother, with her tiny grocery store, and my father as a construction worker with his irregular work contracts, despite the high inflation which continues to increase in the country, always do their best to meet the family’s needs: food, education, and health fees.

My parents put me in one of the best schools in Haiti – College Dominique Savio, a catholic school. There, discipline and hard work are highly encouraged because the retention rate is less than 25% due to academic challenges. However, I put my hands in my paw to successfully get my diploma, having spent 13 years of scholarly education in this school. Because of my aspirations, I have always made efforts to overcome my limitations and integrate myself among the best students in my class. Considering an average of nineteen courses we have to take yearly, it is challenging to integrate into extracurricular activities. Despite everything, I have always tried to evolve inside and outside the classroom. In this sense, I integrated myself into entrepreneurship-related activities, music (the piano and the flute), robotics, business, table tennis, and basketball. To exceed my limits, I also won several national mathematics, physics, chemistry, robotics, and entrepreneurship competitions. I was even elected finalist in one of the world’s top-rated competitions for highschool students.

I wanted to attend university in my country, but it was already difficult for my mother to pay for university for my older brother. I wanted enough resources to receive an education that would give me a global perspective on how things work. This was where my desire to study at Berea College came in; not only does Berea College offer a high-quality liberal arts education at no cost to every student – including international students, but it also allows one to meet students from diverse areas and improve oneself with all the available resources. Thanks to my commitment to academic achievement and community service, I was offered a full scholarship to pursue my undergraduate degree at Berea College–all the way from a slum in Haiti. Moreover, I was lucky to be featured in the best newspapers in Haiti, such as Le Nouvelliste, Juno7, and Chokarella, and worldwide magazines like the US News–and Forbes, very soon as I already did an interview with them.

I am double majoring in Computer Science and Economics to create employment in my country while sharing with my fellow Haitians crucial tricks to maximize their business outcome. Because if people find work and the government creates wealth, fewer Haitians will find themselves on the side of the gangsters, and the inflation rate will drop considerably.

However, there is a flip side. As an international student, I have to pay a tax of around $615 each semester on my full scholarship, which represents a burden for me to attend career fairs and courses that can allow me to grow professionally as we only work 10 hours per week on campus and earn $5.23 (tax included) per hour. One will argue that I should save money, but my monthly hygiene expenses and my transactions back home to support my family make it hard for me even to save money. When students go home during breaks, I have no choice but to stay on campus to work extra hours as I need more money–that is still not enough.

After completing my university studies, I plan to return to my native country as soon as possible to make that dream happen: changing the narrative of Haiti through Entrepreneurship and technology. Moreover, growing up, my mother always inspired me to become an entrepreneur – which led me to start my first business (Kichemy Impression) in high school, join my school’s entrepreneurship club, win business competitions (Diamond Challenge, Pitch Biznis Lakay, Concours Athena) and serve on committees (Student Advisory Board of the Diamond Challenge) of international entrepreneurs. All of these experiences have shown me that entrepreneurship is what I want to do for the rest of my life. This reason led me to believe that thanks to entrepreneurship, Haiti can emerge from this ongoing socio-economic crisis. In this sense, I will not only reduce the country’s unemployment rate but also reduce the fact that young people who could contribute to the country’s future destroy their nation by engaging in homicides, kidnapping, and other traumas.

As a Christian and a proud Haitian, I believe my actual situation cannot stop me from dreaming big. I am committed to making a bigger impact in my motherland by having the right educational resources, and I am committed to going the extra mile to start making the change I want to see.