17256: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-'No' is not in this teaching nun's vocabulary (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Nov. 14, 2003



'No' is not in this teaching nun's vocabulary
Sister Yamile works six days a week teaching English to Haitians and
religion to children.
BY DONNA GEHRKE-WHITE
dgehrke@herald.com

Five days a week, Sister Yamile Saieh teaches English to Haitian adults at
Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti.

On Saturdays, she's back to lead the children's religious classes.

Sundays she has off. Sometimes.

Sister Yamile, 66, can't imagine letting up. It's crucial: The Catholic
Archdiocese of Miami, South Florida's largest private nonprofit provider of
social services, relies on her to help children, the needy, the elderly, the
ill.

''Sister Yamile is an icon in our community and certainly in the
Archdiocese,'' says Mary Ross Agosta, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese. 'The
word 'No' is not in her vocabulary -- in any language.''

She was born in Colombia to Catholic Palestinian immigrants, one of 11
children. She decided early on she wanted to be part of the Salesian Sisters
order that helps children.

''I like to work where I am needed,'' she adds.

Once she thought that was Africa. But her Mother General in Italy, where she
finished six years of college studies, had other ideas: The United States.
''That's a mission too,'' she told her.

In 1967, she moved to New Jersey to teach Italian immigrant children, then
she broadened her scope to teach Puerto Rican and South American children in
New York. She moved to Virginia to direct a daycare center, returned to New
Jersey, then in 1984 was transferred to Miami to help Haitian immigrants.
(She understood French and learned Creole when she got here.)

Soon, she was needed not only to teach English to children, but to adults
too.

Her teaching, however, extends beyond the classroom doors. Every year, she
organizes a Christmas toy drive. She still delights in a doctor who one year
gave $5,000 to buy toys for 800 children -- then followed up the next year
with another $5,000 check.

''The children even got electronic toys that they had never had,'' she
marvels.

Sister Yamile is just as grateful to the Junior League of Miami, which gave
her a $5,000 grant for her summer camp. Last summer about 500 low-income
children, most of them born to Haitian immigrants, went to the camp.

''It was the first time I could take them to the Seaquarium,'' she says.
''They loved it.''

She's thrilled the Junior League has asked her to apply again for a grant.

''She's an incredible person,'' said Junior League President Karen Cabrera.

Of course, Sister Yamile is modest about her own work. She says she plans to
keep up her six-day-a-week schedule to help the Haitian immigrants.

After all, she noted, ''Sisters don't retire until we can do no more.''

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