{"id":65312,"date":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-student-fulfills-mothers-vision-for-fiji\/"},"modified":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","slug":"uri-student-fulfills-mothers-vision-for-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/01\/uri-student-fulfills-mothers-vision-for-fiji\/","title":{"rendered":"äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾ student fulfills mother\u2019s vision for Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013January 20, 2010–Brett Geaber\u2019s mother always envisioned her son teaching children at the Gospel School for the Deaf in Suva, Fiji, where she volunteered as part of her ministry in 2004.<\/p>\n


\n \tWhile putting an internship together, Diane Geaber was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died last June.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI had to fulfill the promise I made to her so I picked up the pieces and flew to Fiji last Sept. 12,\u201d says Brett who earned his communication studies degree in December. \u201cWhen I arrived after crossing the dateline, it was Sept. 14, my mom\u2019s birthday. I didn\u2019t plan it, but I knew that it was a sign.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tDuring Brett\u2019s internship, he kept his cameras rolling while teaching the children martial arts and hip hop to create a variety show for friends and families.<\/p>\n


\n\t \u201cI was teaching something that a lot of them had never seen before so I wasn’t sure how they would react,\u201d the Kingston resident recalls. \u201c\u201cThey loved hip hop and picked it up so fast it was incredible. Everyone in Fiji, even the kids, is open minded and welcoming. They all made me feel at home and part of the family so that after two months I didn’t want to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen Brett was young, he began creating short films after finding his parents\u2019 old video camera. He combined film with his hobby of recording hip-hop music with friends to create music videos in high school. <\/p>\n


\n\tHis interest in martial arts and performance began when he watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Shirley Temple. When the Ichiban Karate Studios in Wakefield opened, he begged to join. His parents finally relented and signed him up when he was 4. A quick learner, he became part of a demonstration team when he was 6. Today he teaches at the studio and holds a fourth degree black belt in Shorin-Ryu Shodokan and a first-degree black belt in Kobudo (weapons). <\/p>\n

Hip-hop dance and break dancing expertise followed naturally. While at äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾, he was a member of the hip-hop dance team Flavor Unit. He combined all three hobbies during his internship.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThis was a time to reflect and come to grips with a lot of things,\u201d says the 23-year-old. \u201cThrough these beautiful kids, I saw reflections of my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tBrett created a 15-minute documentary about his trip. \u201cMy message is that you can be a light anywhere in the world. You just have to have faith.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tProfessor Alain Alain-Philippe Durand who directed Brett\u2019s internship calls the documentary innovative. \u201cNot only was I impressed by the quality of his film, but I am also very impressed by Brett\u2019s work with the students while at the school,\u201d says the professor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013January 20, 2010–Brett Geaber\u2019s mother always envisioned her son teaching children at the Gospel School for the Deaf in Suva, Fiji, where she volunteered as part of her ministry in 2004. While putting an internship together, Diane Geaber was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died last June. \u201cI had to fulfill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}