Never Give Up

Rising from the rubble comes a tale of true heroism

Words by: Nakita Ardern

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 his all to helping the disadvantaged throughout the world in his roles with the United Nations – a passion he shared with his wife.
After completing a law and politics degrees at Otago University, Emily backpacked around the world before meeting up with her parents who were serving as VSA volunteers in Cambodia.
“Upon visiting them I saw first hand what an impact you can have working with communities living in poverty. I signed up with the United Nations programme there and then and haven’t looked back.”
Using nearly a decade of experience with the United Nations and the International Rescue Committee, Emily set up the Kenbe La Foundation using her knowledge of processes, global objectives and systems.
“Our initial goal was to raise funds and awareness to help the children of Haiti. We had a project from the start to support a particular school of 120 children that had been destroyed by the earthquake. It was important for us to have a focus for where we were going to help because we would have been overwhelmed by the amount there was to do. We sent over emergency funds and resources to help re-establish their school and community, and we have now established connections with two more schools.”
Emily created Purple Cake Day on 1 March, which became the Trust’s day of celebration, education and action to raise awareness and funds for children in need. It has been inspired by Kofie’s compassion for street children and by Zenzie who wanted not one, but two purple cakes for her 4th birthday. The earthquake struck a week before she turned four.