Girls Learn International
April 6th, 2007
If you were intrigued by the theme of educating girls in last week’s post, Developments in Literacy, here’s another great organization trying to tackle the problem.
Girls Learn International was established in 2003 as a service learning initiative designed to bring American middle school and high school students into the global partnership to promote access to quality education for all girls.
Girls Learn International Chapters are based in middle schools and high schools in urban, suburban and rural communities across the United States. With facilitation by college interns, each American-based Chapter is then matched with a Partner Classroom in communities in Sub-saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Latin America.
The Partner Classroom provides quality education to girls in a community in which girls have traditionally been denied access to, or discouraged from completing, education.
The program works as participants in the American-based chapters engage in a variety of educational, communication, advocacy and outreach projects on behalf of the Partner Classrooms, where they have the chance to develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills essential to good leadership.
Girls Learn International is working to giving girls a better head start both in the United States and abroad. If you want to contribute to the cause, start a chapter in your own school, or purchase some cute clothing, check out their website today!
Travel for Good
April 3rd, 2007
Those of us who grew up in church knew them as “mission trips,” but it appears that traveling with a purpose may be entering the mainstream with a new monniker, as “voluntourism!”
A recent USA Today article quotes Sally Brown, who heads the Indianapolis not-for-profit group Ambassadors for Children, as saying that “the number of travel organizations of various kinds that offer voluntourism trips has probably doubled in the past three years.”
There are many companies offering these unique types of travel experiences:
Sustainable Harvest International focuses on fighting poverty and deforestation in Central America.
Travelocity’s Travel for Good Network can point you to an array of non-profit travel partners representing a wide range of trip opportunities – from environmental work to animal rescue and habitat restoration to humanitarian and homebuilding missions around the world.
GlobeAware is one of those partners. GlobeAware offers one week adventures in service that focus on cultural-awareness and sustainability. All program costs, including the cost of airfare, are tax-deductible.
Ready to take the plunge? For some great tips on planning your voluntourism experience, check out Voluntourism.org. From trip selection criteria to suggestions on handling the post-trip “re-entry,” they’ve dialed in the details of voluntouring, and can help you make the most of your precious vacation time!
Developments in Literacy
April 3rd, 2007
Nicholas Kristof’s editorial in today’s New York Times, chronicling the harrowing experiences of a Pakistani woman forced into sexual slavery by her husband, inspired this post.
The story is unfortunately not an isolated one, and while any number of reforms are necessary before the problem begins to be adequately addressed, Mr. Kristof points to one — literacy — that promises to give girls a head start in learning to protect themselves from this kind of exploitation.
To that end, Developments in Literacy was launched in February 1997 to work for the eradication of illiteracy in the most remote and neglected areas of Pakistan.
Since that time, DIL has succeeded in establishing 250 primary and secondary girls’ schools in Pakistan’s four provinces, serving approximately 10,000 underprivileged children.
How can you help? It turns out that the cost to accomplish this important goal is remarkably inexpensive by Western standards: one year of basic education for one child costs just $50. To make a child literate takes at least five years, or just $250. And the cost of sponsoring an entire school for one year is $1250.
Whether you’re able to give $50 or $1250, your gift could help a give a girl a chance for a better life!
Earthbound Farms: Just for Kids
April 3rd, 2007
At our house in Carmel Valley, we have the luxury of living just down the road from the Earthbound Farms farmstand. It’s a wonderful stop on Carmel Valley Road, filled with organic flowers, groceries and produce, and comes complete with an outdoor herb garden designed especially for kids to roam.
But even if you don’t live close to the real thing, you can bring the organic farmstand experience home to your kids!
Check out the Earthbound Farms website to learn how to build a worm compost bin, or download the activity book to learn about organic farming with Earthy and Bounder!
Teaching your kids healthy eating habits now will reap a harvest of good health for a lifetime!