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

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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.''

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