Christine’s story: Escaping poverty through education in post-earthquake Haiti

Christine in school in Haiti w captionPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, 31 August 2010 – Christine, 14, lives in a camp for displaced people near the international airport here in the Haitian capital. “The only thing I know is that I know nothing,” says this energetic girl, who cites Socrates as her motivation for going to school.

“A person without education is a life without examination,” she says, paraphrasing the ancient philosopher. “You have to study and study to be a big philosopher, a great intellectual.”

And Christine has done just that, even though she was out of school for three months following the earthquake that struck Haiti in January, destroying her home and displacing her family.

Siblings not in school

Christine’s tattered notebooks, filled with detailed anatomy sketches, are a testament to her desire to become a doctor.

“I want to see with my own eyes what’s in the body and understand how my heart beats,” she says. “Like the Haitian singer named Jean-Jean Roosevelt says, if we give the world to women, the world would be marvelous, because girls have hearts.”

And Christine’s heart goes out to her siblings, who are not in school.

Her 15-year-old brother, Jean Renee, has been out of school since just before the quake, when he was forced to drop out. His mother could not afford to pay the school fees and had to make the difficult choice of sending just one of her three children to classes. Now Jean Renee goes to a family friend’s garage each day to work as a mechanic’s apprentice.

“If I cannot send him to school, I want him to at least learn a trade and stay out of trouble,” says his mother.

Meanwhile, Christine’s sister Afenyoose, 9, longs to go to school but cannot because it is simply too expensive.

‘My mother is my life’

Christine attends one of the few public schools in the country where fees are relatively affordable. But most of Haiti’s schools are private, creating a major barrier to education.

“I feel very, very sad that I go to school and my little sister doesn’t,” says Christine. “I try to teach her what I’ve learned every evening when I come home from school.”

Even for Christine, however, there are barriers to education. For example, teacher absenteeism is a reality in Haiti, because many teachers do not have the resources to get to their jobs.

“I sometimes don’t want to go to school because our teachers are not there,” says Christine. “My mother says, ‘Go to school, there may be teachers who will be in the classroom.’ She always gives me the strength…. My mother is my life.”

In the displacement camp, Christine’s mother sells second-hand tennis shoes that she gets on consignment. She meticulously cleans them with a toothbrush. This is how she supports her family and pays her daughter’s school fees. Her objective is to get out of the camp and give her children a better life.

“My mother wasn’t able to study. This is why she wants us to go school, so we don’t go through the same difficulties she did,” says Christine.

Rebuilding schools

The earthquake that shook Haiti destroyed or damaged some 4,000 schools. UNICEF’s priority in education has been to re-establish these schools as quickly as possible.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, temporary learning spaces were set up in large tents with water and sanitation facilities adapted to children’s needs. These temporary tents are being transformed into semi-permanent structures.

“I went to see my school after the quake,” Christine recalls. “The primary school next to our school had collapsed on top of my school, crushing a part of my classroom and the head teacher’s office. Now we are in learning in a tent, and it’s very hot.”

It’s clear that education is Christine’s lifeline – as it could be for all of Haiti’s children.

“I want the government to rebuild our schools, because there are children who will come after us,” she says. “Without education, there is no life, because education elevates man to the dignity of his well-being.”

See the video and the original article on UNICEF’s website at : http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti_55829.html

Julie Florio- Shine Intern and Award Winning filmmaker

Julie Florio photo“People see clowns and perceive that they are happy, but after the makeup comes off, it is revealed that clowns are people and they have lives and struggles, too” says Julie Florio of her short documentary Patchwork. Florio, along with Kim Plummer and Tevita Toutaiolepo, were recently awarded the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Best of Festival King Foundation Award for their touching portrait of Clown Chips and the man behind the makeup, 62-year-old Julius Carallo.

Clown Chips is a beloved addition to birthday parties and uses his painted smile and joyful antics to get a laugh out of everyone he encounters. The three filmmakers were looking into the subculture of clowning when they met Clown Chips at a convention in Seaside Heights, N.J. “I remember filming him, and we asked him, ‘Why did you become a clown?’” Plummer said. “He broke into this story about [a past tragedy and how he] wanted to share positivity instead of bitterness. It was a stark contrast from all the other answers about loving to be around children.” Intrigued by the disconnect between Cavallo’s heartbreaking story and his profession, they set out to unmask Chips the Clown.

Through a series of interviews with clients, fellow clowns, families, and children, Patchwork gathers together the different pieces of Cavallo and Clown Chips to show that the joyful clown and the grieving man are two sides of the same person. “I hope viewers recognize the spaces between the cracks that form the narratives of our life stories,” said Toutaiolepo. “Patchwork shows these cracks and doesn’t judge or try to mend them. Big stories are great, but it’s the smaller ones that we are able to absorb.”

Even more striking than the story is the beautiful way in which it is told. We watch the intimate ritual of Chips putting on and then later removing his makeup to reveal his wrinkles and the fact that he is not always smiling. Interspersed with the footage are stop animation sequences (a specialty of Florio). All in all it is a real visual joy.

Julie Florio has been an intern with Shine Global since January and is currently using her skills at putting together beautiful and heartfelt stories to create a series of webisodes for Shine Global featuring migrant child farmworkers. Stay tuned for news on when this series will premier. Florio is certainly a filmmaker to watch.

Patchwork is now available online for download at Indie Pix. Please visit http://www.indiepixfilms.com/film/4543 to watch this touching and beautiful story.

Julie Clown filming