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Newsroom |
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April 16, 2007 EX-SRI LANKAN SLAVE TO SHARE HER STORY The MFS community will hear the amazing story of Beatrice Fernando on Thursday, April 19. The youngest of 13 children, Fernando was forced to seek employment as a housemaid in Sri Lanka while her parents cared for her young son. She responded to an ad which placed Sri Lankan housemaids with families in Lebanon, with the hope that she could send the money home for care of her family and child. She found herself instead trafficked to Lebanon as a domestic slave, locked inside the home of her wealthy slave owner, forbidden to go outside or communicate with others. The apartment complex guards were ordered to shoot her if she was found outside the apartment. After months of forced labor and torture, she eventually decided to escape, jumping from a fourth-story window. Fighting off a spinal injury from which doctors thought she would not walk again, she eventually made her way back to Sri Lanka with no compensation for her work. Not only did she walk again, but she traveled to the United States with her family and earned her bachelor’s degree. She has written an autobiography, In Contempt of Fate, and testified before the House Committee on International Relations in Washington, D.C. Below is Beatrice Fernando’s schedule for April 19 at MFS:
Fernando is speaking on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG). This visit is part of a service learning unit that concludes with the annual “Emancipation Rocklamation,” a concert to be held Saturday, April 21 (doors open at 5:30 p.m.) for Upper School students and guests that raises funds for the AASG. “These two events annually provide a great introduction to intelligent and sensitive social activism,” said MFS Upper School English teacher and faculty event coordinator Peter Larson. “The concerts have raised approximately $3,000 per year for the AASG. It’s also tremendous fun and students take on responsibility for a major project and its logistics.” Past speakers have included ex-slaves from the Sudan who were eyewitnesses to genocide there, an ex-slave master turned abolition activist from Mauritania now living in exile in Paris, and an American who has co-ordinated slave redemptions in Africa. Student organizers for the 2007 Emancipation Rocklamation are seniors Nathan Paul (Mount Laurel) and Matthew French (Moorestown), President and Vice President respectively of the MFS Music Club.
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