Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Erika Johansen's personal connection to her topic brought life to her performance
EXETER — Exeter-West Greenwich sophomore Erika Johansen is one of 49 Rhode Island students chosen to represent the state at the national History Day competition in Washington, D.C. next month.
Johansen earned her way to the national competition by winning at the state level in late April, an event that drew approximately 300 student competitors from 29 public, private and parochial schools.
What makes her win especially gratifying is that as a school, Exeter-West Greenwich doesn’t participate in the annual competition. Johansen decided to enter the event on her own.
“Some schools require students to enter but they don’t do that at EWG,” she said. “I wanted to do it independently.”
Johansen credits her mother, Lisa Johansen, and Matthew Brissette – both history teachers at Coventry High School – with guiding her through the process.
The theme of this year’s competition was “conflict and compromise” and projects ranged from the history of the Narragansett Indians to Roe v. Wade.
Johansen, who entered the competition’s performance category, took on the task of completing an annotated bibliography with 30 sources, writing a paper and writing, memorizing, and acting out a nine-minute script because she found a topic that truly inspired her: landmine victims of the Cambodian genocide.
It was a topic to which 16-year-old Johansen was especially sensitive because she is an amputee.
Johansen was born with a birth defect and, after undergoing surgery to cleanly sever her underdeveloped limb, she was fitted with her first prosthetic leg before she was 2.
“I’ve never known life with two legs,” she said. “I can’t really imagine what it’s like for these victims who were born with two legs, then lost one in an accident like that.”
Johansen became interested in the plight of Cambodians under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge after reading two books by Cambodian author Loung Ung.
Ung, author of non-fiction works “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” and “Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites With the Sister She Left Behind” survived the Khmer Rouge genocide campaign that claimed the lives of an estimated 2 million in the 1970s and 80s.
After both her parents were killed, Ung and her older brother escaped Cambodia in 1980, fleeing to Thailand where they lived in a refugee camp before eventually immigrating to the United States.
Landmines still litter the Cambodian countryside and since arriving in the United States, Ung has become an advocate for genocide survivors and amputees.
Today, the American Red Cross estimates that 35,000 Cambodians have lost limbs in landmine accidents.
One of Johansen’s primary sources of information for the project was Ung herself, whom she interviewed over the phone.
Johansen wrote her script “through the eyes of a survivor,” she said, a survivor preparing to leave Cambodia for America. Her presentation included music, a set and photographs. To make her performance even more personal, Johansen decided not to wear her prosthetic leg.
“My leg is a real security blanket for me,” she said. “I never go anywhere without wearing it so it made me feel a little vulnerable.
“I think I realize more than other people how this can affect your life. My leg broke one day and I was traumatized. I got it fixed right away but I don’t go one day without using it.”
In the United States, Johansen said a prosthetic leg costs about $15,000. In Cambodia where, according to a 2004 census 35 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, luxuries, such as prosthetics, are simply not an option for many.
“Amputees without prosthetics are seen as not being whole in the Buddhist religion,” she said.
Theravada Buddhists constitute 95 percent of the Cambodian population.
“Victims have a difficult time getting jobs. They often have no other choice than to beg for money on the streets,” Johansen said.
Johansen said she hopes the work she put into the project will count toward the new state-mandated senior project requirements but because she’s only a sophomore, she’ll have to petition the board and explain why she did the project early, rather than in her senior year.
If she’s unable to sway the board in her favor, she said she would like to organize a benefit at the school to raise money for Cambodian amputees with Loung Ung as the guest speaker.
As for the competition itself, Johansen said she would consider entering again.
“It was a lot of work but it was a great experience. I got a great sense of accomplishment from it.
Erika Johansen's personal connection to her topic brought life to her performance
EXETER — Exeter-West Greenwich sophomore Erika Johansen is one of 49 Rhode Island students chosen to represent the state at the national History Day competition in Washington, D.C. next month.
Johansen earned her way to the national competition by winning at the state level in late April, an event that drew approximately 300 student competitors from 29 public, private and parochial schools.
What makes her win especially gratifying is that as a school, Exeter-West Greenwich doesn’t participate in the annual competition. Johansen decided to enter the event on her own.
“Some schools require students to enter but they don’t do that at EWG,” she said. “I wanted to do it independently.”
Johansen credits her mother, Lisa Johansen, and Matthew Brissette – both history teachers at Coventry High School – with guiding her through the process.
The theme of this year’s competition was “conflict and compromise” and projects ranged from the history of the Narragansett Indians to Roe v. Wade.
Johansen, who entered the competition’s performance category, took on the task of completing an annotated bibliography with 30 sources, writing a paper and writing, memorizing, and acting out a nine-minute script because she found a topic that truly inspired her: landmine victims of the Cambodian genocide.
It was a topic to which 16-year-old Johansen was especially sensitive because she is an amputee.
Johansen was born with a birth defect and, after undergoing surgery to cleanly sever her underdeveloped limb, she was fitted with her first prosthetic leg before she was 2.
“I’ve never known life with two legs,” she said. “I can’t really imagine what it’s like for these victims who were born with two legs, then lost one in an accident like that.”
Johansen became interested in the plight of Cambodians under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge after reading two books by Cambodian author Loung Ung.
Ung, author of non-fiction works “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” and “Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites With the Sister She Left Behind” survived the Khmer Rouge genocide campaign that claimed the lives of an estimated 2 million in the 1970s and 80s.
After both her parents were killed, Ung and her older brother escaped Cambodia in 1980, fleeing to Thailand where they lived in a refugee camp before eventually immigrating to the United States.
Landmines still litter the Cambodian countryside and since arriving in the United States, Ung has become an advocate for genocide survivors and amputees.
Today, the American Red Cross estimates that 35,000 Cambodians have lost limbs in landmine accidents.
One of Johansen’s primary sources of information for the project was Ung herself, whom she interviewed over the phone.
Johansen wrote her script “through the eyes of a survivor,” she said, a survivor preparing to leave Cambodia for America. Her presentation included music, a set and photographs. To make her performance even more personal, Johansen decided not to wear her prosthetic leg.
“My leg is a real security blanket for me,” she said. “I never go anywhere without wearing it so it made me feel a little vulnerable.
“I think I realize more than other people how this can affect your life. My leg broke one day and I was traumatized. I got it fixed right away but I don’t go one day without using it.”
In the United States, Johansen said a prosthetic leg costs about $15,000. In Cambodia where, according to a 2004 census 35 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, luxuries, such as prosthetics, are simply not an option for many.
“Amputees without prosthetics are seen as not being whole in the Buddhist religion,” she said.
Theravada Buddhists constitute 95 percent of the Cambodian population.
“Victims have a difficult time getting jobs. They often have no other choice than to beg for money on the streets,” Johansen said.
Johansen said she hopes the work she put into the project will count toward the new state-mandated senior project requirements but because she’s only a sophomore, she’ll have to petition the board and explain why she did the project early, rather than in her senior year.
If she’s unable to sway the board in her favor, she said she would like to organize a benefit at the school to raise money for Cambodian amputees with Loung Ung as the guest speaker.
As for the competition itself, Johansen said she would consider entering again.
“It was a lot of work but it was a great experience. I got a great sense of accomplishment from it.
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