High School Students Teach Lynn Rotarians
Posted by Ray Bastarache on Jun 23, 2016
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The Rotary Club of Lynn recently hosted a group of 10 Lynn Classical High School student refugees, as well as the students’ teachers, at its evening Satellite Club meeting. The program’s title, Living in Two Worlds Film Festival, came about thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Cummings Foundation, examines the challenges, hardships but also the rewards of life as teenagers now living in America and attending public schools. Each of the 10 students shared their stories in a three-minute video narrated by the individual student.“I think I can speak for all our Rotarians when I say we were in awe as to how brave these students and their families were to make the decision they made to leave their homeland,” remarked President Ray Bastarache. “The horrors they have seen at such young ages…”
One student, who immigrated from Libya, told the group how when the Islamic State invaded her country they killed many people and actually kidnapped her brother and his best friend. As a warning to her brother, ISIS actually delivered the dead body of his best friend to their home. Another student from Haiti explained how his father was forced to leave his mother and his many brothers and sisters to come to America for work. He faithfully sent money back to his wife in Haiti so she could provide for the family but it took 10 years before they could reunite with their father in 2013.
One of the most touching stories was from a boy who lived in the African country of Eritrea. To escape the death squads, he and his mother and a small group of villagers snuck out of their camp at midnight and wandered for many days through jungle and desert before finally being rescued. A young lade from Guatemala had to quit school at age six and work on the farm after her father died of cancer.
It has to be noted that despite all the challenges these young students have endured, all appeared to be thriving at Classical which brought a smile to the faces of Rotarians Pattie Capano and Jared Nicholson as both serve on the Lynn School Committee. Bastarache, Club Vice President Steve Upton, Satellite Chairman Dick Ruth and Mackie Bastarache are all retired Lynn Public School employees. Upton and Jeff Weeden are Classical graduates. The program coordinators are Ms. Jaclyn Fisher and Alexis Kopoulos.