Contact: White House, Office of the First Lady, 202-456-2580

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following text is of a statement by Mrs. Bush During a visit with students participating in the Idejen program:

College de St. Martin Tours

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

1:21 P.M. (Local)

MRS. BUSH:  Well, this might be my last chance to speak to you all before we leave to go on to Mexico.  So I want to thank everyone here at Idejen, which we've just seen what this program is all about.  It's for younger people who have dropped out of school early on, or for some reason were never educated.  And so now they come back, they learn to read and write, and then most importantly, there's vocational training so they can get a job.  And the program works with the real economic community to make sure there are jobs that people are training for.

And in the other room, we met with graduates of the program who have already gotten their certification.  Most of them have gotten a job doing whatever they trained to do, and a lot of them are using part of their pay from their new jobs to continue in school.  And I think that's really important for students to realize they need to keep going, to study more, and really to complete school.

So I especially want to thank the Director of the program.  Thank you very, very much.  The Minister of Education, who has joined us, thank you so much, Mr. Minister, for being here.  Appreciate it very much.  Thanks a lot. 

And I especially want to thank the students.  Thank you for letting us come visit your school.  And good luck to you all.  Study hard and keep going.

END  1:24 P.M. (Local)