VINCENT Davidson

General
FROM HAITI TO THE UNITED STATES
He was born in Thomonde, Haiti, and moved to the Dominican Republic at age nine, before later moving to Florida in the United States of America through FINA's development programme. "When I was nine years old, I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mum searching for a better life, since my financial situation in Haiti wasn't very good. When I first moved to Dominican Republic, I felt very lonely, because I didn't have friends. I only spent time with my mum because I didn't speak any Spanish and could only speak Creole. It was 2013 when my mum asked me if I wanted to join the swimming team of the club where she was working. After some years of training, the Haitian [swimming] federation got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to represent the country, and I became part of the Haitian federation. The president of my federation wanted me to get better, he told me he would speak to FINA and try to get me a sport scholarship to come swim at Azura [in Florida, United States of America[, to train here for a year and therefore improve my times. My sport goal is to represent my country at the Olympics in Tokyo 2021 and make my country proud of me. Five years from now I see myself graduating from university in the United States of America." (fina.org, 2021; gofundme.com, 02 Feb 2021)