Never Give Up
Rising from the rubble comes a tale of true heroism
ON JANUARY 12, 2010, at 4.53 p.m. local time, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake; the country's worst earthquake in over 200 years. The epicentre of the quake was just outside the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The magnitude was that which hit Christchurch in September 2010, but the death toll was about 300,000. That's the same as if we lost everyone in Christchurch in 30 seconds. Over one million people were left without homes – that's roughly the population of Auckland becoming homeless overnight. Nelson-based Emily Sanson-Rejouis lost nearly everything in
the disaster, but now she's rebuilding her life and the lives of those left in the rubble. Emily and her family were based in Port-au-Prince with the
United Nations Peacekeeping Mission. Sadly she lost her husband, Emmanuel (39) and daughters, Kofie-Jade (5) and Zenzie (3) in the disaster, and despite search and rescue teams saying it was too difficult and dangerous to attempt a rescue, Emily persuaded a group of young men to help her and between them they worked to save the lives of three people. One was her youngest daughter, Alyahna (1) who, amazingly, was rescued badly cut, bruised and with a broken leg after 22 hours under the rubble of their collapsed apartment building. A week later Emily came up with the idea to set up the Kenbe La
Foundation (which translates to 'never give up' in Haitian Creole) and Purple Cake Day. She admits that may seem quick, but assures the initiative was "extremely intuitive and reactive". "I needed to create a foundation to fulfil the dream of my
husband, which was to give educational opportunities to children living in poverty in his native country, Haiti," she explains. "Child poverty was an issue we were both passionate about and had experienced in many of the war torn and post-conflict countries we worked in." emily first met emmanuel in nigeria in 1998, where they
were both working independently as United Nations volunteers coordinating international elections observations. It was love at first sight and the intercontinental couple were married in Nelson in 2003. Emmanuel Rejouis was remembered as a man who gave
HER MAGAZINE | February/March 2012 | 47
