[Wisconsin] Student’s poverty study leads to fundraising for Haitian school

from The Appleton Post Crescent

By Kathy Walsh Nufer
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON - When it came time to do his senior year project at Valley New School, Oliver Zornow tackled global poverty.

To make his research all the more personal and real, the 17-year-old traveled to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The trip Zornow made in January with his stepfather Bryan Semrow, a pastor, did more than give him a first-hand view, however.

It served as a clarion call to action. Maybe, he thought, he could do his small part to help the poorest of the poor get an education.

Since Zornow’s return he has established a fund for his family’s friends in Haiti to start a school in the rural region of Caneille.
Caneille is little more than a wide spot in the road with a scattering of huts, no running water and no electricity.

So far Zornow and families of classmates at his charter school have raised about $600. This Friday and Saturday he is organizing, with fellow students’ help, his project’s first big fundraiser - an arts and crafts sale from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Appleton Christian School.

Zornow figures $2,000 is needed to finance four teachers and supply the school its first few months.

More money will be needed to maintain the school, and he also hopes to raise $14,000 to purchase a truck to deliver food and provide emergency medical transport for Caneille’s residents.

It touched him, he said, to hear of people dying because they could not walk to the hospital in Hinche.

Zornow’s senior project on global poverty includes his journal from Haiti, small solutions such as his to help people escape poverty and large solutions such as the United Nations’ plan to reduce by half, by 2015, the 1.3 billion people, including most Haitians, who live on less than $1 per day.

Zornow said his trip to Haiti was an eye opener.

To get to there, he flew in a six-seater plane from Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince to the city of Hinche and then drove the remaining nine miles over nearly impassable roads to Caneille. "It takes an hour and a half in a four-wheel drive vehicle," he said, While Hinche is impoverished, "Caneille is really bad," he said.

Zornow said Haiti faces multiple poverty issues.

"I didn’t just see poor people. I saw people who had to walk miles for water and the water was not clean," he said.

"I saw kids in uniforms going to school and kids without uniforms with nothing to do who couldn’t afford uniforms to go to school, and probably didn’t have enough money to eat either."

Zornow, who plans to attend Cornell College in Iowa or Lawrence University in fall, and major in political science, said graduation does not end his project.

He plans to return to VNS to recruit students to continue fundraising efforts for the Caneille Regional Development Fund, and he hopes to visit Haiti again.

Michael Kieffer, 17, a junior, would like to go, too, and help further the cause. "I was very excited when I heard about this. It seemed like it could really do something for people, not just throw money at the issue."

HAITI

Population: 8.3 million
Ethnic Groups: 95 percent black, 5 percent mulatto and white
Languages: French/Creole
Literacy: 52.9 percent of people 15 and over can read and write
Poverty: 80 percent of population lives below poverty line.
Mortality rate; 71.65 deaths per 1,000 births
Life expectancy at birth: 53 years
Source: CIA World Fact Book

Arts and Crafts Sale to benefit children of Caneille, Haiti

Who: Sponsored by Caneille Regional Development Fund (Bringing Education, healthcare and opportunity to Rural Haiti)
What: Hand-woven baskets, pottery, jewelry and other works for sale.
When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday April 14-15
Where: Appleton Christian School, 217 Wisconsin Avenue
Why: Raise money to build a school in rural Haiti
For further information on the Caneille Regional Development Fund, or to donate, contact Oliver Zornow at CRDFund@gmail.com