Haiti earthquake survivor moves students.
Annika Allman, right, speaks to students from Dixon Grove Junior Middle School Jan. 19 about her experience surviving the earthquake in Haiti last week. Listening to her story are seventh graders Uswah Niaz, Haris Jameel, Namra Javed, and Priyanka Moorthy.
Staff photo/ANICE WONG
Ten Columbia University students escaped certain death in their Port-au-Prince hotel by mere minutes.
Packed in a van, the New York university students had just stepped onto the parking lot at a UN building when the fierce rumble hit.
"It was terrifying," Annika Allman, 26, told a rapt audience of students at Dixon Grove JMS Tuesday afternoon - the school where her father, Albert, teaches. "Was it a bomb, a hurricane, a tsunami? None of us knew. We froze. We got down. We waited till it was over."
Thirty seconds.
The magnitude-7 quake killed an estimated 200,000 Haitians, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless, the European Union Commission estimated.
Neighbouring buildings remained standing. Quiet fell. It was too quiet.
Allman and her peers took to the street. Hydro poles had fallen, wires scattered. A bus had overturned into a ditch.
"Children were hurt, crying. They wanted help to pray. We started picking up injured people and taking them back to the parking lot," Allman recalled, her raspy voice congested from having slept on the street in Port-au-Prince for two nights.
The university students ripped their own clothes to make tourniquets, and tore licence plates off vehicles to splint broken arms and legs.
Within hours, hundreds of Haitians had descended on the parking lot.
"People were injured, screaming in agony, confused. They had no idea where their families were. They didn't know where the next meal or water would come from. We helped everyone we could," the petite Richmond Hill woman told students.
Later, the university students returned to Karibe Hotel. Devastation. Seven storeys crushed to a half-storey.
The UN evacuated the uninjured Columbia students to an airbase near Port-au-Prince International Airport. They spent the night huddled in a UN bus on the tarmac. Last Thursday, they were flown out to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic for their flight home.
Behind Allman, desperation etched on the faces of Haitians crying, praying, some tense with agony leapt off the projection screen's Powerpoint presentation in the central Etobicoke school's auditorium.
Audible gasps quickly followed.
But Haiti and its plight is no stranger to Dixon Grove students.
Students raised $1,000 last year to help rebuild a Haitian school.
Hoops for Haiti, a day-long basketball tournament Feb. 4, will raise $5 per participating student.
"We're constantly re-enforcing 'character education' attributes to live by," said principal Neil Quimby. "It's not unfamiliar to our kids to rally around a cause and make a difference for other kids."
Toronto District School Board teaches character traits that include Respect, Cooperation, Responsibility, Teamwork, Honesty, Kindness and Caring, Empathy, Integrity, Fairness and Perseverance.
Quimby sent parents a letter home Tuesday asking each student to contribute a loonie or toonie to the school's Haiti relief fundraising. Funds will be donated to the Canadian Red Cross.
"Some of you have leftover Eid money or birthday money," teacher Anne O'Connell told students. "Sacrifice something in your life, like your babysitting money, or don't buy that McDonald's or pop or new shirt and give that money to the kids in Haiti."
Grade 8 student Jordan Buckingham implored students to give.
"What would you do if today there was an earthquake and every building and house, just everything was destroyed," said classmate Rukuman Matovu reading Jordan's words. "On Tuesday, Jan. 12 these things happened in Haiti. They had a massive earthquake that killed thousands of people and most of the houses, hotels, hospitals and stores were destroyed...
"Together we can change what is terrible into something that brings hope. Together, we can make a difference."