A Canadian University College student in Lacombe is doing his part to help Haiti.
Religious studies student Roberson Dorelus, 18, along with biology student Ted Merceus, 19, are brainstorming ways to raise money for relief efforts following the earthquake in the country from which both young men’s families originate.
“Basically if we can do anything, it’s tell people that Haiti is in great need right now. When I mean (donate) anything, I mean pennies,” Dorelus said Thursday.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to collect money and just help out,” echoed Merceus in a separate interview, adding that he wants a concert they hope to host on Feb. 1 to illustrate for people why Haiti is in such dire need.
For Dorelus, the disaster has hit home. He’s from Florida, but his grandma and aunt were in Port-Au-Prince when the earthquake hit.
“I was in shock for 20 minutes,” when he heard.
The news of the earthquake hit especially hard because Dorelus returned only a few weeks ago from a two-week trip to Haiti, including the capital, in support of a charity he started at age 14. He visited orphanages and the city’s main hospital.
“To see the recent pictures, it’s just devastating.”
Friends flying to the Dominican Republic on their way into Haiti have told Dorelus they’ll look for his aunt who lives in Haiti, and grandma, who was on vacation from the U.S. His family has been unsuccessful trying to get through on the telephone.
“I don’t know why God’s chosen me,” Dorelus said, explaining that the hotel where he stayed recently has been destroyed. “If that earthquake had hit then, I would have been dead.” He is already planning on heading back this summer.
A Caroline-area couple, Anna-Marie and Neale Loomis, have two adopted children from Haiti and are in the process of adopting a third child.
With the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit near the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, they don’t know when they’ll be able to get their youngest daughter Dalina to her new home in Canada.
The couple were in Haiti at the end of November to meet with a judge and finalize the adoption papers for Dalina. Many of the buildings they were in are now rubble and the judge who presided over the case was killed in the earthquake.
Anna-Marie fears they may have to start from scratch with Dalina’s adoption, but she hopes the Canadian and Haitian governments can work together to smooth the process for bringing Haitian children who have been adopted by Canadian families to Canada in a short period of time.
The couple knows their youngest little girl is OK. The orphanage where she is staying has put updates on its website.
It’s still difficult for Anna-Marie, Neale and their older children from Haiti, Emmanuella, nine, who is the half sister of Dalina, and Antoine, seven. The children’s Haitian relatives are extended family and they normally keep in touch them, but Anna-Marie hasn’t been able to get them on the phone.
John and Alene Veenstra adopted two of their children Jenise, nine, and Joseph, seven, from Haiti.
“It is their birth country and our hearts are very closely knitted with Haiti,” Alene said.
Alene said she has been open with her children about what is going on in their home country. “(My children are) sad that all this has to happen and why it is happening,” she said. Alene has a hard time watching much of the news herself because she finds it so devastating.
A Ponoka-area mother of four adopted Haitian children who is also a board member of the Haiti Children’s Aid Society is “very happy that our guys are safe.”
“But when I look at the rest of the country, I think, ‘I’ve been on that road.’ But I don’t recognize it. I look at the presidential palace that I’ve seen with my own eyes and now it’s a one-storey building,” Patti Vold said Wednesday. “In the slums, I know what the buildings are built like and I know the chances for the people in them are slim to none. If the palace can crumble like that, then the corrugated shanties don’t stand a chance.”
Her Haitian children include a 17-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy, and two nine-year-old girls. She also has five biological children,
Vold’s 17-year-old daughter lives in Red Deer. She was adopted at age 11 and still has all her biological family in Haiti.
“She called me last night sobbing . . . she says, ‘Can I go home?’ And I said, ‘No, you can’t.’”
Her adopted son has asked her to go look for his biological mother in a large slum in the capital, a difficult task in the best of times.
“But now it’s going to be virtually impossible,” Vold said.
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com and sobrien@www.reddeeradvocate.com