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CHESTERFIELD: Concert to aid local student’s return to Haiti

By Amber Cox, Staff Writer
   CHESTERFIELD — A Nov. 6 concert and desert reception at the Chesterfield Baptist Church will help resident Sarah DeSilva raise money for a year-long trip to Haiti.
   Ms. DeSilva will be returning to Haiti for her third time in February. All profits from the concert will go solely to her trip to Haiti. Tickets are $15 each.
   ”Sarah needs to raise $10,000 to provide for her year there,” Pastor Ed DeSilva, her father, said. “We’re a musical family. We all sing. We’re going to put on about an hour’s worth of music here at the church and have refreshments after.”
   Ms. DeSilva is currently in her last semester at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa. and carrying 21 credits.
   ”She graduates in December,” Mr. DeSilva said. “She is scheduled, now, to leave for Haiti in February.”
   Ms. DeSilva gained an interest for Haiti after her brother and father went traveled there with Vincentown Baptist Church about 14 years ago.
   ”Upon their return, my father showed us the many pictures he took, writings he composed while he was there and a few trinkets he and my brother brought back for us,” she said. “I could not stop looking at the pictures, and I could not stop thinking about what it was like there. If I could have, I would have packed up then and there, as an 8- to 9-year-old girl, and gone to Haiti. Ever since then I have had a deep desire to know more about the people and the country, learning about Haiti at any and every opportunity.”
   Ms. DeSilva became very involved with a group at her school, Beyond Borders, two years ago and went on her first Transformation Travel Trip (TT) with them.
   ”Beyond Borders was created out of an organization called EAPE which is run by Tony Campolo,” she said. “Tony was a long-time sociology professor at Eastern and is responsible for many of the groups at Eastern today, including Beyond Boarders.”
   Mr. DeSilva said that the program is based on the concept of a partnership to help better each other’s lives, which works well for Ms. DeSilva, who is an anthropology major.
   ”They’re very relational, they’re very holistic,” Mr. DeSilva said. “They’re not at all paternalistic. Sometimes we get the mindset that we’re Americans, we’ll come in and rescue you, we’ll save you rather than treat you as equals.”
   Ms. DeSilva participated in two TT trips between semesters in January the past two years.
   ”When she saw Haiti she fell in love with the people,” Mr. DeSilva said. “She was moved by the need that she saw there. That’s really what sends her back now.”
   Ms. DeSilva has kept in close contact via e-mail and by phone with a few of the people she met on her first trip.
   ”The culture there is so full of life, color and beauty,” she said. “I want to know more about the culture, land and people and there is no better way to do that then to immerse one’s self in the culture and with the people. I really felt that in my two trips to Haiti that I deeply connected with the people and realized that I could not just ignore that, I had to go back, and I knew that it was going to be for a longer time.
   ”The program I’m going with is for a year or two, but I am completely open to longer.” Ms. DeSilva said she will be living about two to two and a half hours south east of Port au Prince in a mountaintop village called Meno.
   Ms. DeSilva said that where will be staying, the residents are often too poor to provide for all of their children and will be tricked into sending a child to live with a family in Port Au Prince. Families in Port Au Prince tell families in the “sticks” that their child will be sent to school and be given a better life than can be provided for them at home, the child is then turned into a servant, if not a slave.
   Mr. DeSilva said that Ms. DeSilva will be working with Limye Lavi (Light of Life) helping to education women and mothers concerning the dangers of child servitude. She will help them discover alternative ways of providing their children with adequate care and school rather than sending them to the city where they are often taken advantage of. This problem has become more prevalent following the 2009 earthquake.
   ”She’ll actually be living with a Haitian family, in a Haitian home, eating Haitian food,” Mr. DeSilva said. “They speak minimal English so she will learn the creole quickly. They immerse her fully in the culture which creates a relationship and out of that she hopes to do some significant things.” Creole is a French-based local language spoke by as much as 80 percent of the population.
   Ms. DeSilva is not worried about feeling neglected or unwanted at any point in her time in Haiti because “Haitian people are unbelievably hospitable and welcoming.” “Of course I have some anxiety over the language barrier but I have been working on creole for quite some time, and I am confident that one immersed, I will be able to pick it up quickly with the help of all those around me,” she said. “I have found that the people there are more than willing to teach you creole, so I certainly will not be lacking when it comes to willing teachers.”
   She is a little worried about not having electricity or running water but is confident that “we are much more capable of adapting to things we wouldn’t otherwise think we could.”
   ”Heck, there are millions of people that do it everyday just fine,” she said. “Haiti often gets such a bad rep, that it is often the only thing people see or believe. The people are the most loving, kind, intuitive, creative and intelligent people and that needs to be recognized.
   ”I want it to be clear that the rumors that these people are lazy, apathetic, unintelligent or do not care to change their situation is unfair and completely unfounded,” she said. “I have seen so many hateful comments from people who believe that Haiti and her people are undeserving of any help or aid, or that they are even incapable of helping themselves that is makes me physically ill, and it needs to be said that these things are simply not true.”
   For further information about the Nov. 6 fundraiser concert please contact Chesterfield Baptist Church at 609-298-4401.