EDINBURG — Former President Bill Clinton delivered a speech on hope, family values and change to an audience that had to use two auditoriums at the University of Texas Pan American to hear his conference.
Clinton spoke about the main challenges the world is facing today and how communities in different countries are trying to resolve their most acute problems.
Haitians, said Clinton, have an income of $777 a year and this is an improvement if we compare that income with that of $700 ten years ago. But Haitians are having a national crusade and all of them donate a day of salary a month to clean houses.
“We have to do things that bring us together,” said Clinton who showed a solar lamp used in Haiti as an example to bring renewable energy to poor countries.
Former president Clinton also spoke about Hispanics and the need to resolve the huge drop-out problem in America. “Three of four Hispanics drop out the school because the have to feed their families,” Clinton said and suggested to support community college education as a place to give education to people who have to work.
“Why don’t we recognize the family values of the people who want go to school to work while they work,” Clinton said.
Clinton spoke also about the projects his foundation is developing in different places in the world and said education is one of the biggest challenges to America. In 2001, the U.S. was the first in the list of countries with people with bachelors degrees, this year the U.S. is the tenth, said Clinton.
