Shaniah

Shaniah Twohearts, 10, is a quick and intelligent girl with exceptional artistic ability. Her family moved to New Orleans from Minnesota less than a year before Katrina hit. They lost everything in the flood. Now, the five of them crowd into a small trailer in Renaissance Village.

Shaniah should be in a strong academic environment where her talents and abilities can be developed. She would be the student with her hand up in the front of the class and always have the right answers. But school for her takes place in the back of a trailer that is also used as the Renaissance Village library and computer center. The half trailer school accommodates about 12 to 15 children in grades K-5. Because her family was impoverished by Hurricane Katrina, Shaniah is saddled with the responsibility of helping to parent her younger brother Michael, 4. She also helps her 11-year-old brother Torion who has a learning disability and is behind her academically. Shaniah is a natural leader and she works with other students at the small school. She dreams of being a fashion designer and dressed her classmates in her own creations put together with bits of cloth and scotch tape.

The makeshift learning center that Shaniah and her brothers go to each day is not a place where Shaniah's light can shine. The center was opened for children of Renaissance Village who are not attending public school. Classes are conducted by a staff that consists of a volunteer instructor and a Louisiana State University student who has taken a leave for a year. The focus of this one-room school is to provide specialized tutoring, remediation and motivation. The goal is to get students up to grade level so they can be mainstreamed in the public school system. Shaniah's parents, Dawn and Michael, feel that the trailer school is the best they can do for their children at this time. They both work at the trailer park. Dawn is a cook at the cafeteria and Michael delivers meals to sick and shut-in residents on a golf cart. There are no child care facilities available and, without the school, Shaniah and her brothers would be unsupervised for several hours each day.

From CDF's 2006 report, Katrina's Children: A Call to Conscience and Action. Read more stories of Katrina's children.