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- NAME: Cynthia Hansen
- AGE: 13
- EDUCATION: Will enter 8th grade at Livermore Valley Charter School
- RESIDENCE: Livermore
- WHAT SHE DID: Went to impoverished areas of Vietnam as part of a relief and education mission
- QUOTE: "I learned we take a lot of things for granted, and that a lot of people don't have some of the simplest of things."
- INFORMATION: To learn more about the Catalyst Foundation, visit www.catalystfoundation.org
LIVERMORE
Not too many Tri-Valley seventh-graders took a trip halfway around the world to an exotic, tropical country for spring break this year.
For months, Cynthia Hansen, a 13-year-old student at Livermore Valley Charter School, worked hard for her vacation. She raised the money for airfare and accommodations by giving presentations and soliciting donations that would land her in Southeast Asia.
It paid off. Cynthia spent about a week in late March in an immersion program of sorts, mingling with amicable, barefooted natives — some her own age and younger — as they worked a primitive trade passed down by their parents.
They rummaged through heaps of trash piled deep around their homes at a sweltering garbage dump in Rach Gia, Vietnam, harvesting recyclables.
"It looked just like a dump you'd see here, and the whole place was pretty much covered in trash," Cynthia said. "But they had made homes in it out of boards and tarps and stuff. About 50 families were all living in the dump."
Those homes aren't free. Monthly rent runs $10, and picking through trash hauled in from nearby cities for 10 hours will pay the equivalent of about three dimes.
"There are people there who come from generations that have lived in the dump," said Caroline Ticarro-Parker, founder of the Catalyst Foundation, a group that has been dedicated to assisting orphaned, abandoned and homeless
It's a subsistence existence, and a life that's hard to imagine for a teenager who usually spends her free time at volleyball, soccer or cheerleading practice.
But seeing is believing. And Cynthia says she can help do something about what she saw.
Cynthia, along with her mother and aunt, was part of a mission to help break that cycle of poverty. They went on the Catalyst Foundation's Vietnam Aid Expedition, which takes a group to the Southeast Asian nation every two years to provide direct assistance by building structures, distributing food, providing medical care and other necessities to families and children in need.
A school and a library have risen at the Rach Gia site, while bicycles and bags of rice have begot beaming smiles at schools and villages around the country.
Cynthia's aunt Susan Saltgaver previously embarked on the excursion and said she found it richly rewarding. For this year, she got Cynthia and the teen's mom, Delores Roessler, involved as well.
"I knew my sister would love this," Saltgaver said. "She's a pharmacist and fits in with the medical team. And I thought it would be great if she also brought her daughter along."
They approached Cynthia with the idea a few years ago and received a positive response.
They knew it would be the first time the girl would see Third World impoverishment.
"We tried to prepare her ahead of time," Saltgaver said. "But she was still surprised by the level of poverty."
Cynthia said she knew it would be different, "but not as different as it was when I got there."
She said she expected conditions to be similar to what she had seen on trips to Mexico, with scenery that might be reminiscent of Hawaii.
"But there was a really big cultural difference," Cynthia said. "It started with the traffic — cars, buses, motor scooters everywhere, all honking at each other. "... There were people walking around with no shoes, and their clothing wasn't very clean. Poverty is a lot worse there than it is here. Some places aren't as bad as others, and looks like you'd see the downtown in some big cities here. "... But other places, it's much worse."
Saltgaver said her niece was accustomed to nice vacation accommodations, but that wasn't the case on this trip.
"To be put into a one-star motel with a communal bathroom that's sometimes just a hole in the ground. "... That's something else." Saltgaver said. "But she got over it."
They were in a group of about 80 people, and Cynthia was one of just a few teenagers on the trip, although there were a lot of younger kids.
Many were Vietnamese children who had been adopted by American families.
"Several got to meet their birth families," said Roessler, Cynthia's mother. "There's so much poverty, parents just can't afford to keep children, and adoption is a better option than selling children to work as prostitutes."
The American children serve as liaisons, Parker said.
"They are what we call the school team," she said. "They have the most contact with the children, and become ambassadors of the United States. Kids play with other kids better than with adults, and it is incredible how they overcome the language barrier. Play is play."
Saltgaver said the Vietnamese children are inevitably thrilled to see their American counterparts.
"They see that other kids care about them, and hear stories from kids who were adopted by American families, telling them not to give up and strive to make a good life in Vietnam; it's incredibly supportive," she said.
Parker said that's what the Catalyst Foundation is all about.
"When we were there two years ago, we'd ask the children what they want to be when they grow up, and they would just look at us with no answer," Parker said. "Now they say they want to be a singer, they want to be a teacher or maybe they want to work on bicycles. Now they feel like there are endless possibilities. It's a big deal to really see that there's some hope."
Cynthia agreed that was the most important part of the trip, which she plans to make again in two years.
"I learned a lot of things," she said. "I learned we take a lot of things for granted, and that a lot of people don't have some of the simplest of things. But overall, they are hopeful, and I think we brought them a lot of hope.
"It made me feel like I did something really right."
Eric Kurhi can be reached at ekurhi@bayareanewsgroup.com or 510-293-2473.
Hometown Heroes, a partnership between Bay Area News Group-East Bay and Comcast, celebrates people in the Bay Area who make a difference in their communities. In addition to highlighting remarkable individuals, the Hometown Heroes feature aims to encourage volunteerism, raise visibility of nonprofits and key causes in the area and create a spirit of giving.
Read about a new Hometown Hero every other Monday and watch the program on Comcast On Demand at Channel One-Bay On Demand-Hometown Heroes.
