Ferntree Gully Belgrave
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Tuesday, 15 December, 2020
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A Star News Group Publication
Trapped in Chile By Taylah Eastwell Belgrave’s Sarah Clark boarded a plane headed for Chile, South America, in February this year with dreams of snapping breathtaking photographs and broadening her language skills through an international exchange program. As a creative arts and Spanish student from Deakin University, she was thrilled to be accepted into a semester of exchange at Universidad del Desarrollo. But with Covid worsening, Ms Clark only completed two weeks of her exchange on campus before the country went into quarantine for six months. The trip of a lifetime transformed into a frightening and lonely year-long ordeal for Ms Clark, who remains stranded in Santiago without any financial assistance from Australian agencies. Ms Clark’s friends and mother have created a GoFundMe in hopes of raising funds to help
with living costs and the hefty costs of a flight home and the necessary quarantine. The Star Mail caught up with Ms Clark on December 8, two days before Santiago entered yet another total lockdown. “I had an AirBnB booked when I arrived and the plan was to meet people in my classes and organise to share some accommodation but that didn’t happen because we only had two weeks on campus,” Ms Clark said. Ms Clark had no option but to complete her international exchange program online over Zoom from her isolated apartment. “I ended up having to leave the apartment I was in because I could not afford it anymore and did not want to be myself in quarantine for six months,” she said. Continued page 2
Belgrave’s Sarah Clark is currently stranded in Santiago.
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