Things are moving slowly, but sure enough, they are moving. In recent days I had a chance to present my ideas before a group of young professionals and talk it over with some people who work with young people and others who I trust for good insight. Standing before the group of young profs on Sunday was an enlightening experience. They shed some light on various obstacles that lie ahead of us. The biggest obstacle, as I had expected, is a question that I will probably hear from just about every potential internship employer: “What’s in it for me?” In Haiti, its a big favor you’re asking when you ask someone to let you into their business. Even when you are well-educated and qualified it is hard to get in unless you know someone inside. And now we want them to open up a door to an under-qualified high school pre-graduate… Wow, when I write it, it sounds even more ambitious than before. We need some really good reasons.
I had no problem finding this kind of program when I researched U.S. organizations. Companies that take in teen interns ask for little or nothing in return, and sometimes pay the underqualified interns out of their own pockets. But here, in order to start such a program, we are going to need some sponsors/grants in order to put something into the interns’ (and probably even the employers’) pockets, and we have to rely on our own personal business contacts and social status to sway some employers. It would be difficult to make this program appealing to a businessman as a complete outsider. Thankfully, three of the four current team members (Delva, Nico, and myself) are pastors in 3 different, semi-affluent (or at least large, in my case) churches. And two of us inherited well-known and well-respected names (thanks daddios). That should be a good springboard to get us started.
Another good question that was raised was “why are we looking only at the professions that require a university education, especially when job market for these professions is thin?” It took me a minute to understand it (in fact I didn’t fully understand until I was driving home talking to my friend/”chauffeur,” J.P. Simpson). At first I thought, well, “their participation in our program can give them an edge after they graduate.” But then I saw that giving an edge to one person doesn’t solve the problem, it just takes the edge from another.
In the car, Simpson talked to me about how things have changed over the years and young people no longer look at bakers, brick-masons, mechanics, tailors, and shoemakers as true professionals. Hardly anyone aspires to these professions these days, yet they require services from a few of them each day. These people make a living on their own. Graduates w/o work experience and w/o connections don’t. I immediately saw this mentality as something that could be worked on through our program. So now the new idea that we are entertaining is how can we work internships within these other professions into the program… I’ll let you know how things develop.
