15 Dec Innovators Amid Adversity: Haitian Youth Spark National Pride

Team Haiti’s journey to the 2023 FIRST Global Challenge in Singapore was filled with twists and turns—and hope.

Each year, FIRST Global brings together teams of students for a week of international cooperation and competitive robotics at the FIRST Global Challenge. United in their pursuit of STEM education, teams spend a season building, learning, and developing crucial team working skills before traveling to the annual event. But though every team shares the same destination, their journeys differ.

For FIRST Global Team Haiti, their journey was one of many challenges. They signed on to compete only one month before the event, putting them behind other teams. Receiving their robot kit only a week before their departure, the team worked nonstop to have their robot ready on time.

Student Eloyse shared, “Although we didn’t have the kit, we started working on strategies, right? We started planning what we are going to do when we receive the kit. So when we actually received the kit, we started working late…Like, go to sleep late [and] wake up really early in the morning so we can build it.”

Team mentor Jameson added, “Every time we would tell them to go to bed, they would not until they finished.”

They were coming from a country where most schools lack access to science or computer labs and the hands-on learning these environments provide.

“You should have seen them. The first time they came to our program, we had a used robot donated to us. Those kids—they didn’t know anything about technology right?” said Jameson. “Some of them don’t even have a phone. That is the community that we are serving.”

FIRST Global Team Haiti 2023 boarding their flight to the event.

Despite all of their hard work, FIRST Global Team Haiti faced an almost unimaginable complication mere days before the competition began: nearly being blocked from traveling. After already attaining a Schengen visa to transit through Europe, the first step of their travel to Singapore was supposed to be a flight to the Dominican Republic. However, just before the team was scheduled to depart, the Dominican Republic closed its borders to all travelers from Haiti, so the team had to re-route their flight path and act quickly to secure a second visa in order to transit through Cuba instead.

But they made it just in time.

The students of FIRST Global Team Haiti have proven through example that robotics is the sport where anyone can go pro.

“Those kids have grown,” said Jameson. “Now, even in their schools, in the communities, all the kids want to be part of them. All the kids want to be part of the program.”

In fact, FIRST Global Team Haiti has been an example of national pride for the country since the event began. Wycleaf Jean, the world-famous Haitian musician and former Ambassador-at-Large of the Republic of Haiti, wrote during the competition in Singapore, “Late last night I got a chance to speak with the robotics team in Haiti. Amazing!!! I look forward to seeing what you all build next!!!!”

Asked what his team’s participation at FIRST Global meant to his country, Jameson replied:

It means a lot. It means hope, because right now, with everything that is going on back home, people are focusing on us here... these are intelligent kids. They’re not seeing poverty. They’re seeing intelligence. They’re seeing smarts. They’re seeing leadership, right? They are not saying, ‘Look at this poor country.’ But they are saying, ‘Look at those intelligent kids that are representing Haiti...”

Looking forward, Eloyse shared, “The best way I can inspire [other students] is to share with them my experience here. How [much] this experience has meant to me, how it has changed me as a person and as a leader… that more people can see what we are [really] about.”