Sejour’s Life is Changed

By Daniel Fontil,
Child Advocate

I want to share with
you the story of Sejour’s life, as she shared it with me.

Sejour* was found and recruited into the Child
Advocacy Program in August of last year by one of our Child Advocates, Nathacha.
Now that I am her Child Advocate, I always take time to talk with her when I
visit her school, and she always wants to thank me for her education and for
the other support she has received from Restavek Freedom.  At first I could not understand why she kept
thanking me.

One day, I got to her school and had a meeting
with her.  Before I began asking how
things were going, I wanted to know how she viewed life.  So, we spent some time talking about life and
how a life can change.  I was amazed as I
listened to her share her story.

First, she told me
that life is being able to struggle.  Life
is fighting with ourselves, and with others….but not everybody has the ability
to struggle.  For example, a baby needs its
parents’ support, and a student needs his or her teacher’s support.  “If each person has someone to support them, who is going to support
people who are mistreated, like me?” she asked. She did not give me time
to answer the question, because she had the answer.

She started
explaining her life before she had been recruited into the Child Advocacy
Program. She said:

“Daniel, my greatest problem was school. I had no one to pay school tuition
for me, so each week that I would go to attend class, they would send me away
because I did not pay.  When I would get
home and tell this to my host family, no one would respond, because I was not
treated as human. For them, going to school is not good for children who are
not their own. The only thing they wanted from me was to fetch water, clean the
house, walk their children to school, and do a lot of other things for them at
home. They liked when I did everything they asked of me, even though I was
forced to do them.

One day, Nathacha Lucien met me, and I explained everything to
her.  She was concerned about me, and
spent a lot of time that day talking with me and listening to me.  She enrolled me in school, and since that day
I’ve had great changes in my life.  I go
to school and am more confident in who I am, because I can give my point of
view on a specific subject in class or even out of class.  I know my worth now because of Restavek
Freedom.  The most important thing I
realize now is that I have someone who cares for me and for my education.  Now when I am at school I feel comfortable,
because no one can ask me to leave the class because my school is not paid. I
have the same value as the other children in the school. It is a privilege for
me to be in the Child Advocacy Program.  I am very grateful for that.”

I can testify that Sejour
has experienced great changes in her life. I believe as Restavek Freedom works
towards transforming lives just like this one in Haiti, the country will improve,
and people whose lives have been changed will have opportunities to change
others’ lives as well.  I have seen that
Restavek Freedom is doing more than talking…yes, we are working to end child
slavery in Haiti.

*Child’s name has
been changed to protect their privacy.