[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

29940: Hermantin(News)Elite Private school to help kids in Haiti (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Feb. 01, 2007


BLACK HISTORY MONTH | FORT LAUDERDALE
Elite private school to help kids in Haiti
On the eve of Black History Month, acclaimed author Edwidge Danticat on Wednesday unveiled a partnership between a wealthy Fort Lauderdale private school and a struggling education center in Haiti.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com

Students don't have pencils, running water or restrooms at the Three Little Flowers Center in a remote village in Haiti, where the operating annual budget is $3,000.

At the private Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, students excel in advanced-placement courses, advertise their college plans on Yale sweat shirts, and see their parents come up with $17,890 a year in tuition.

On Wednesday, the two schools found common ground: author Edwidge Danticat, who announced a partnership that will allow Pine Crest students to raise money for Three Little Flowers Center.

''I am hoping this morning begins a conversation between your school and a school that's in Haiti,'' Danticat told an auditorium full of students.

During a Black History Month program at Pine Crest Wednesday, Danticat also discussed her works Krik? Krak! and Behind the Mountains, told students about her first impressions of moving from Haiti to the United States at 12, promoted a new memoir and talked about black Americans' interest in Haiti.

She cited author Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological work in Haiti and the fact that choreographer Katherine Dunham lived and danced there as examples of black Americans who shared an interest in Haiti.

''These are only some of the bridges between us,'' Danticat said in a speech that preceded a series of skits performed by the school's Black Students' Association.

The Three Little Flowers Center got its start in the rural village of Petit Goave in 1987 -- one year after the Duvalier dynasty fell -- with a simple yet groundbreaking idea.

Named for a trio of girls who died from lack of medical care, the school sought to teach students in their native Creole, rather than the colonial French.

''Everything in this school was organized around the native language there, which is Creole,'' said Yves Dejean, the school's founder and a well-known Haitian linguist. Dejean founded the school after discovering the kids of Petit Goave did not have a school.

Today, the five-classroom school offers a flexible curriculum and serves as a neighborhood center to some 100 students.

''It's more than a school, it's a community center,'' said Karla Dejean, diversity director at Pine Crest, who helped spearhead the partnership. She is not related to Yves Dejean.

The partnership between Pine Crest and Three Little Flowers is still in its early stages, but one idea is a photo essay, Karla Dejean said. Students from each school would snap photos with disposable cameras en route to class, then share them, she said.

Organizers already have a few ideas on how to spend the money raised by Pine Crest students: the school in Haiti needs lots of repairs and plumbing. Boys and girls share a patchy field for a restroom.

A pickup truck would bring rice and water for school meals to Petit Goave from Port-au-Prince, 50 miles away.

After speaking about the school project on Wednesday, Danticat answered students' questions about writing, race, and Haiti.

Asked by one student why she became a writer, Danticat said, ``If anything led me to being a writer, it was listening to stories.''

WRITING TIP

Asked what advice she has for aspiring writers, she said: ``Every word counts -- the economy of it, it's important.''

And on her first impressions of the United States, she recalled boarding an escalator at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

''It felt like time travel to me, to get on that escalator,'' Danticat told the students.

After the talks, fans huddled around Danticat to ask more questions and to get autographs.

WRITES MEMOIR

She talked about her upcoming book, a memoir about her uncle, the Rev. Joseph Nozius Dantica, who died in 2004 in custody at Miami-Dade County's Krome Detention Center. The book, Brother, I'm Dying, will be published by Knopf in September.

One student really appreciated Danticat's first-hand perspective on her work.

''By having the author there you have the real, authentic commentary,'' said Gabriel Seidner, a 17-year-old senior bound for the University of Pennsylvania. ``I've always wanted to speak with an author.''

_________________________________________________________________
Valentine’s Day -- Shop for gifts that spell L-O-V-E at MSN Shopping http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctId=8323,ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24095&tcode=wlmtagline