West End Terrace was transformed into a scene out of “Pitch Perfect” during Stand up for Freedom Week, hosted by the Periclean Scholars Class of 2015. The concert featured Elon University’s a cappella groups, gospel choir and Limelight Music Group artists. Proceeds went to the Restavek Freedom Foundation, whose mission is to end Haiti’s widespread practice of child slavery.
Restavek is a Creole word meaning “to stay with.” According to the foundation, it occurs when poor Haitian children are sent to live with relatives in the hopes of receiving care and education, but end up living as second-class citizens in the household.
The Periclean Scholars broke into several committees to plan the benefit concert. Senior Omolayo Ojo’s committee was in charge of public relations for the event and campus-wide education.
“This whole week has been a human trafficking and Restavek education week. We knew that we wanted to educate the campus while also raising money for our partner organization,” Ojo said. “As a group, we thought the best way to raise money would be through a benefit concert, where we could combine a fun, casual atmosphere with education and awareness.”
Planning the concert required much more work than anticipated, said Senior Sophia Koh.
“After contacting all of the performance groups, we had several other smaller tasks to complete, including planning the sound check and concert lineup and reserving speakers and different types of microphones,” Koh said. “Everything that we had to accomplish for the concert to run smoothly was important to complete, which is why creating committees was such a crucial part of the planning process.”
Senior Rachel Shippee said choosing performers and the specific performance date was a key component in preparation for the event.
“We contacted the performance groups that we were interested in featuring, like the a cappella groups on campus who we knew would help draw a huge turnout for the concert,” Shippee said. “We knew the event would occur on Halloween weekend, so that played a major factor into deciding what day the concert would be held.”
Both education and entertainment were showcased at the concert as the Periclean Scholars wanted to maintain their goal of campus-wide education of the Restavek system.
“We decided that it would be beneficial to share facts about Restavek in between each group’s performance, that way we could have both spreading awareness and a fun event at the same time,” Shippee said.
The theme of freedom was chosen as the focal point of the concert, with each performance group basing their setlists on this theme.
The Periclean Scholars wanted to replicate Restavek Freedom Foundation’s project called ‘Songs for Freedom’, a music competition throughout Haiti. Ojo said different organizations, groups and schoolchildren perform songs related to the topic of freedom.
“What’s really heartbreaking is that the youngest kids who are singing these songs about getting out of Restavek don’t fully understand what they are actually singing about,” Ojo said.
The Restavek Freedom Foundation was chosen as the Periclean Class of 2015’s cause after a long process of discussing problems in Haiti.
“We chose this foundation as our class’s main focus because we wanted to support a cause that involved social justice and an area that no other Periclean class has done before,” Koh said. “We also wanted our local partnership to be related to human trafficking, which is unfortunately prevalent right here in North Carolina.”
Ojo explained the Restavek Freedom Foundation has created a transitional home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, for young girls who have been victims of Restavek.
According to Ojo the concert attracted over 200 members of the Elon community.
“Our end goal as Periclean Scholars is to create an endowment that will allow the transitional home to take care of these girls and help nurture them for four to five years,” Ojo said. “The underlying theme of the night was really for the girls and for any Haitian child who has been a victim of child slavery.”