| More “Netza” news... one families’ dream (vacation) |
by Nancy Seeley
March 2004
When Marcia and Roger Rom flew to Zihuatanejo from Alaska with their three daughters this past January, they were looking for more than just another day in paradise.
Although escaping the snow and cold of Anchorage for three weeks of sun and sand in Ixtapa/Zihua was a laudable goal in itself, they wanted to give something back to the community they’d come to love during three previous vacations here. They searched the Internet looking for ideas, and what evolved was a project to mutually benefit the Netzahualcoyotl Bilingual Primary School for Indigenous Children and the Rom sisters’ classmates at the Highland Tech School in Anchorage through educational enrichment activities.
Armed with a concept, 15-year-old Katie Rom and her 13-year-old sister Lauren worked with their parents writing a grant proposal to the Alaskan International Education Foundation (AIEF). When they received funding to underwrite some of their travel expenses in exchange for their work with the “Netza” School, they were off and running on a 4-month project soliciting donations of school supplies and medical equipment. Younger sister Emily, 10, as well as Katie’s boyfriend, 16-year-old Sean Mallipudi, joined the team to create a 7-minute video aimed at teaching students at the “Netza” School about American and Alaskan culture. Roger, a former teacher who now works as a lawyer, helped his daughters and Sean to map out some basic English classes for the sixth graders. Marcia, a former lawyer who now works as a public health researcher, kept pre-trip preparations on track.
”We believe that this cultural exchange will help our children to learn and understand the need for global interaction with other cultures as well as share their heritage with others,” Marcia and Roger told the grant committee in their cover letter. “We are particularly excited about our children’s interest in helping to better the lives of children who live in other parts of the world.”
The family - and Sean — arrived in Zihua January 6 with eight suitcases, four of which were crammed with schoolbooks, art supplies, chalk, educational games and toys, toiletries and an impressive array of medical supplies including bandages, antiseptics, syringes, inhalers, antibiotics, pediatric thermometers, and surgical drainage kits. What a relief when Emily pushed the button at the airport Immigration area and got a green light!
Marcia credits Esther Petrie, an ambitious nurse at an Anchorage hospital, for procuring the bulk of their medical donations. When patients are discharged from the hospital, Marcia said, regulations require that any unused supplies they’ve paid for but leave behind get tossed out, so Esther began regularly canvassing rooms for items that eventually ended up in the Rom’s suitcases. Dr. Rogelio Grayeb happily accepted the two bulging suitcases of goodies from the Roms on behalf of Zihua’s Rotary Club, promising to distribute the contents to area hospitals and the Red Cross. The suitcases are a story in themselves. The Roms’ research revealed that Alaska Airlines sometimes donates damaged luggage (for which the passengers have been reimbursed) to worthy causes, so off they went with their approved grant application in hand to earmark a couple for themselves.
Two days after their arrival, the girls embarked on a series of Spanish classes taught by Monica Duran Perez, an enthusiastic teacher and longtime Zihua resident who also provided suggestions on what the group should include in the video of life down here they made to show back home in Alaska. The video they brought with them to Mexico, narrated in Spanish by Sean, was shown to class after class at the “Netza” School on days the family volunteered their time there, invariably resulting in wide-eyed stares and questions about the strange parade of animals moving across the screen. Nobody seemed to know the Spanish word for “moose,” which seems only logical since none of the 320 kids enrolled at the school had ever heard of such an animal. And snow? It was captivating to watch the faces of these youngsters as they struggled with the notion of people skiing, snowboarding, and fashioning pudgy round people out of frozen water. Some of the footage zoomed in on Katie taking part in her jazz dance classes. For the “Netza” children, the rhythms and movements of the dance - so different from what they knew - were puzzling, to say the least.
Katie Rom, with the optimistic enthusiasm of youth, wishes her family’s project “…will hopefully have an effect on ending racism.” Lauren said she hoped to understand Mexican kids better after spending time at the “Netza” School. “Everyone is different and celebrates different things, but on the inside we are all just people,” Lauren said in her statement to the AIEF grant committee. “If we all understood each other better, then there might be fewer wars in the world.”
Now that they’ve returned to Anchorage, the Rom girls and Sean are working to solicit financial support for the “Netza” School. Marcia says they have already begun developing a list and contacting potential funding sources and will keep in contact with Marina Sanchez Hernandez, the school’s inspiring director, to determine its most urgent needs. Spurred on by the success of their initial grant application, the family dreams of possibly being able to bring a group of Mexican children to Alaska who otherwise would not have the opportunity to travel and expand their horizons. And why not? For what would life be without dreams. |
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