Author: Educate for Change

Pandemic Pods, learning bubbles, pandemic learning pods, homeschool groups…the name is not important – as this new trend in education takes hold in America. With many school districts opting for distance learning or hybrid learning to begin the school year, parents are worried. There are many articles and Facebook groups that address how to go about setting up or joining a learning pod (see below), one thing to keep in mind is finding resources offline. Activities that students can do without the computer. This helps to break up screen time and build valuable imaginative and creative moments. Some of the resources need some prep and some do use the computer, but all are creative and will spark the imagination of your child. And remember you can just Google “activities for kids”!

Resources:

• Journaling – topics can be given weekly each student has her own google doc journal page- the teacher can check weekly and either make comments or just check for participation. Younger students or those without /computers/phones can just journal in a notebook to be checked regularly.
• Virtual field trips – see resource link below or create a field trip for them around the home or have them take you on a field trip describing home, field, shops in detail. NOTE: if they only do audio it forces them to use more descriptive words!
• Book bags and or independent work packages- prepare a weeks worth of work to be used so that you are not scrambling each night.
• Copy work -copying either a page from a book or copying a poem so that they’re practicing their writing skills – to take it further they can video themselves reading what they copy or act it our for their pods.
• Make a film or a video to explain their ideas or answer questions.
• Flashcards– a great study tool that can be done offline.
• Memorizing a poem or song and then recording a video of themselves reciting it or singing it or perform it for their pod.
• Interviewing a family member and then having them transcribe it or create a story with pictures or they can verbally present the material as a drama!
• Having a venue for videos where all the videos for the class or posted and then classmates can make comments on each other’s flip grid is good for this. It can also be done in the google classroom stream as a comment.
• They can create podcasts where they are discussing information learned.  Podcasts can be about any topic or personal interest and take preparation. 
• Put a poem or a text in a google doc and give each student a line or stanza/paragraph to annotate (commenting with vocabulary definitions, meaning etc.) everyone can see what others have written and make comments or ask questions directly on the document- this works well when students use different colors for the font. Alternatively, have them do this in a notebook and then share their work in the group. 

For math and science:

• Have students draw a design of their house. Students draw a plan of their house they have to measure each room and then they can do different kinds of calculations based on those measurements 
• Design and build a zoo so this would be more a science-related class or in enviro science, so you have to build a zoo with animals from different habitats different continents different whatever countries a man you have to include things like um what needs to be included in each habitat the feeding what are the animals going to need to be fed if it’s not included in the habitat the number of animals that can be in an enclosure the temperature etc.
• For biology you can do things like a drawn outline of their body on a large piece of paper or a chalk outline on the floor and then label the parts so for the younger girls it can be super simple there just labeling in English head, eyes, nose, mouth, hand, arm, leg, foot – for upper-level students- it can be biological systems, chemical chains etc., so they’re actually drawing and labeling the digestive system or the muscular system or the skeletal systems.
• Having them create artistic journals that represent topics. For example: Habitats- using drawings or materials found in nature create pages that represent habitats, eco-systems, and even environmental problems. They can either be given a handout with an article to read or use the textbook.
• Calculating the stream flow rate so this again can be science or math. Many students have access to a creek or some body of water that’s moving near their house. They can be taught -given instructions on how to figure out the flow rate of the stream based on doing measurements in the stream.
• Using items around the home to measure and then divide into fractions, percentages, shapes- example a pot for cooking measure the diameter, circumference, shape=circle, volume it holds.

Primary: k-5

• Printables resources for lower primary- includes printable books! https://www.themeasuredmom.com/print-2/
• Nature alphabet book: Have students collect and/or draw something from nature for each letter of the alphabet. Then in their notebook, they draw the letter, glue/draw write a sentence and the word. At the end they can staple the pages together- books can be shared with other students/siblings. For older students, this can include some vocabulary words.

The above activity can all so be done with numbers 1 leaf, 2 seeds, three trees (drawn), etc.

• Writing and illustrating their own stories
• Writing and illustrating a recipe
• Writing a story and having another student illustrate it
• Creating simple math books- using the same technique as for the alphabet book 1 bug + l bug = 2bugs etc.

Upper-grade levels 5-12

Huge selections of resources for online learning as well as printable items https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/solutions

All levels:

Virtual field trips https://adventuresinfamilyhood.com/20-virtual-field-trips-to-take-with-your-kids.html

Resources for offline learning:  https://theowlteacher.com/distance-learning/

Articles for parents:

Many of these were written with teachers in mind, but parents can adapt the ideas for home use.

Distance Learning FAQ’s

American Parents and Pandemic Pods

How to Set Up a Virtual Book Club

How to Make Effective Videos for Learning

How Parents Can Help Kids Manage Distance Learning

What Are Parents Doing About Childcare?

Thread for families looking for teachers

Edutopia- thousands of teaching articles

 

 

 

The following blog was written last week by Annie Weber.  Annie is here with us at Educate for Change this summer as a member of the Girl’s Health and Leadership Program Team.  She just graduated from Gettysburg College with a BA in Sociology with a minor in Middle Eastern Islamic Studies.  Annie was awarded the SIT Alice Rowan-Swanson Fellowship and a Projects for Peace grant in order to carry out our programs this summer.  Thanks so much, Annie!  We love you. 

Following weeks of pre-planning and two days of training our wonderful small group leaders, our Educate for Change team has completed the first Girl’s Health and Leadership camp. The S.P.E.A.K Up initiative stands for helping girls to learn about Self-esteem, Protection, Empowerment, Action, and Knowledge about their bodies, rights, and how to stand up for themselves. We are focusing on four schools, each about an hour from Gulu, Uganda in order to target the most vulnerable girls.

To give a little background for those who are not familiar, northern Uganda was beleaguered by political unrest and rebellion for over two decades until 2006, leaving this region still underdeveloped. Health-related issues such as menstruation and sexual/reproductive health still remain untaught within schools leaving girls knowing very little about their own bodies and rights. We have created this partnership in order to address these issues and to help girls reach their full potential in both school and life.

After 16 hours of interviews and 32 candidates, 12 brilliant young Ugandan ladies were chosen to be a part of our leadership team. Our staff and other speakers helped to train these ladies over two days in self-knowledge (menstrual health & sexual health), self-esteem (communication skills), self-defense, and tons of ice-breakers/games to lead their small groups at the camps.

Upon arriving at the first camp in Minakulu, we were so excited to get things going. We started with checking in the girls who had registered. When the girls could barely look me in the face and tell me their names I was nervous about how the camps would go. Would we be able to get these girls to open up? If they can’t even tell someone their name, how will they be able to stand up for themselves when something crucial happens?

After the second day of playing games, actively participating in class sessions and small group sessions the girls started to become closer to each other as well as their small group leaders. The closing ceremony is when I really understood the magnitude of our program. As Marion, one of our team leaders led the closing ceremony the girls were following along with her yelling “Speak up! Speak Up! Speak Up!” and our theme song for the camps, “I’m strong, I’m beautiful, I’m powerful…I’m perfect just the way I am!” I began tearing up alongside other EFC staff members when the girls had practiced and performed a skit for us to let us know how much they have learned over the past 3 days. I cannot thank Educate for Change, SIT, the Rowan-Swanson family, and the Kathryn Davis Projects for Peace organization enough for allowing me to help in facilitating these camps. We are really providing these girls with critical information to help keep them safe and to help them make informed decisions in their lives.

The following blog was written by Emma Anderson, one of our stellar interns this summer!  She highlighted a critical concern we have for many of our female students and in general, women and girls in the region.  Please read on to understand WHAT our S.P.E.A.K. Up! Series is all about and why you should get involved!  Donations are always appreciated to continue the work we do in Gulu and surrounding areas.  

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“Nurse, I have had pain between my legs for a very long time.” When Amito Beatrice*, an 18 year old student in Educate for Change’s scholarship program, finally went to the infirmary at her high school, the nurse gave her a dose of Panadol, the off-brand equivalent of Tylenol, and sent her back to school.

The pain didn’t go away for another month or two. It became so unbearable that her school called Educate for Change (E4C) to report that Beatrice was not recovering. Kristine Sullivan, E4C’s Program Director, made a site-visit to her school to check on Beatrice. After hearing the symptoms and discovering that Beatrice had been suffering from this recurring pain for over a year, she took Beatrice to the health clinic where she was diagnosed with a yeast infection so severe that they had to inject her with antibiotics to fight off the disease.

Female-specific issues and women’s empowerment are not taught in schools in Uganda. When she first contracted this yeast infection, probably from sharing a shower bucket in her all-girl’s dormitory, Amito Beatrice had no idea what was happening to her body or what to do about the debilitating pain. She was embarrassed to talk about it because issues with the female body, though not necessarily taboo, are not culturally comfortable topics to discuss, even with other girl students or women at home in the village. The pain from the year-long infection impacted her ability to concentrate on her schoolwork and to live a comfortable life as a woman.

This incident epitomizes the compounded issues that women and girls in Northern Uganda, and indeed around the world, face due to the lack of education on female-specific medical and personal issues. Dealing with menstruation can keep female students “away from school for the four or five days of their period each month” (NPR). Educate for Change identified this gap in the education system and resolved to do something about it. Girl’s Health and Leadership Camps, they decided, were a way they could help.

These camps are inspired by the work of Kakenya Ntaiya, a Kenyan woman who, at the age of 13, was forced to bargain with her father for her right to education. The agreement? Her clitoris (or participating in the cultural coming-of-age ritual of female circumcision) in exchange for the ability to go to high school. In the face of the innumerable challenges facing a young woman of colour growing up in poverty in a rural village in East Africa, Kakenya was driven to succeed and was awarded a scholarship to study at a University in the United States. She completed her undergraduate degree at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia and then went on to the University of Pittsburgh, where she received her Doctorate in Education in 2011 (Ntaiya). She has used her success to return to her village and build Kakenya Center for Excellence, a girls’ primary boarding school in Enoosaen, Kenya. Educate for Change and Kakenya believe that education will empower and motivate young girls to become agents of change in their community and country. To fulfill this vision of female empowerment through education, Kakenya devised a curriculum to teach girl’s about their potential as leaders, knowledgeable women, and change-maker’s in their own communities. Educate for Change has adopted the spirit of this curriculum and revised it to fit the needs of the girls they serve in Northern Uganda.

In April 2015, E4C launched the pilot program of a Girl’s Health and Leadership Camp series that will be implemented in four different communities in Northern Uganda during the month of July 2015. Over the course of three days, their 16 female scholarship students attended workshops on three strategic focus areas: Self-Esteem, Self-Knowledge, and Self-Defense. E4C organized local Ugandan women to come in and present on these three topics and trained University students to serve as small group counselors, acting as role-models for the girls and answering questions they had on topics ranging from whether they could get breast cancer from inhaling the smoke of trash fires that contain plastics to whether they could lose their virginity from kissing a boy. The camp facilitators were ready to dispel the many myths and misconceptions about the female reproductive system and sexual health that the girls had.

A clear indication that the pilot camp was effective came from the entrance and exit surveys. On the first day of the camp on the entrance survey, fifteen out of the sixteen girls responded that they were sexually active. During a question and answer workshop, the camp leaders discovered that the students believed that “sexually active” meant that they had started their periods. By the last day, after thorough workshops on the reproductive system and sex education, on the exit survey just five of the oldest girls marked yes to the same question. All sixteen graduated from the program and each girl was awarded a certificate of completion, a package of Afripads – reusable sanitary napkins manufactured in Uganda, and a T-shirt with the camp motto – S.P.E.A.K. UP!, which stands for Self-Esteem, Protection, Empowerment, Action, and Knowledge.

By the end of July 2015, 416 female students ranging in age from 14 – 19 years old will gain skills in self-esteem and public speaking, know how to manage and track their periods, be able to identify and prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and learn basic risk prevention techniques as well as practical self-defense tactics. With this toolbox of knowledge, these girls will not have to go through the pain and embarrassment that Amito Beatrice had to endure. With these new skills, over 400 girls will be empowered to speak up when they return to their villages and share this invaluable knowledge with their mothers, sisters, and aunties. With these Health and Leadership Camps, Educate for Change has found an effective means to improve the lives of women and girls in Northern Uganda.

*Actual student’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.

References:

• Cole, Diane. “Proper Sanitary Pads Are Keeping Girls In School”. National Public Radio. 9 March 2015. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/03/09/391030870/proper-sanitary-pads-are-keeping-girls-in-school
• Educate for Change. https://educateforchange.us/
• Ntaiya, Kakenya. “Kakenya Center for Excellence”. Kakenya’s Dream. 2015. http://www.kakenyasdream.org/about-us/kakenyas-story/

I am so pleased to introduce you to Trine Parsons, a wonderful young woman from Medford, OR. You may recall reading a blog Trine wrote last summer after she participated in our Building Bridges Program. When Trine left Gulu, I knew she would be back.  Trine returned this summer for our Building Bridges Program and stayed as an Intern working with Mother Teresa’s Primary School and Educate for Change. You will be hearing more about her internship in the next month or so. For now, sit back and enjoy her musings on the student trip and life in Gulu.

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On July 8th a group of Oregonians left the busy streets of Gulu. As I waved goodbye to them, I thought about all of the memories we had created over our three weeks together. While only some departed with tears, they all departed with warm new memories. The three week trip included sixteen students and teachers from the Rogue Valley in Oregon. The trip was cultural and service oriented, connecting high school students from the USA with their counterparts in Uganda. In addition, we worked on service projects at Mother Teresa Primary School. During the trip, the group painted a large section of the school, created a mural, and provided rubbish bins, but most importantly, we loved and learned.

  (The whole group outside the P7 class).

(Malia on Tim’s shoulders, adding final touches to the mural).

(Three of students from Mother Teresa Primary School).

We did a lot in the three weeks. With our free time, we would walk into the busy markets to see all of the locals staring at us saying, “muzungu muzungu,” pointing out that we are foreigners in their land. As we entered the ten foot by ten foot tailor stalls, each one of us searched through the ocean of material to find the perfect pattern. Then came the laborious process of deciding what to make out of it. Finally Florence, the currently overwhelmed tailor, would look at us like we were crazy. Chaos. But this chaos is what we learned to love.

The sense of “African time,” as we learned, is nice. We began to find beauty in the things we would have never recognized in America. If we ate out in town, there was no guarantee the restaurant would have everything we ordered. Even if they did, we found out quickly that it was unlikely to come out promptly. So we learned to wait. We learned to sit with our group and talk. In fact, the main thing we did in Gulu was learn. We began to adapt to the lifestyle of Gulu.

During our individual town adventures, we would begin to miss the kids with their goofy smiling faces and their mischievous tendencies. By the end of the trip, each American had their own posse. Gabe and Moses were inseparable, while Emily and Prosy shared the same sassiness. It has been fascinating to individually get to know these kids. I have found out what sports they like, what they want to be when they are older, and how they have been living. It is heart breaking to meet someone who seems helpless, because in our society we see everyone who is poor as sad and helpless. But I have seen that simply is not true. The happiness the students of the school radiate is unbelievable and unmatched.

In the end, our group came for the culture, the joy, the children, and the friendships, even if we did not know it beforehand.

(Okello Calvin Joshua, an S1 GLOBAL Scholar from St. Joseph’s College Layibi upside down on the zipline at Recreation Project, Gulu).

(Students partnering with GLOBAL Scholars at the Recreation Project, Gulu).

(GLOBAL Scholars, E4C, and friends from St. Joseph’s College Layibi at Prefect Handover).

(Malia from St. Mary’s in Medford and Malia, an S1 GLOBAL Scholar from Sacred Heart, Gulu)!

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Trine stayed in Gulu to continue working with the deaf students at Mother Teresa Primary School. She is learning as much Ugandan Sign Language as she can absorb, sometimes fifty new words in one day! Her goal is to create teaching videos so that future visitors and teachers who come to Mother Teresa Primary School can learn to communicate with the deaf students. In addition, she is helping us at Educate for Change with everything and anything she can get her hands on! It has been an absolute pleasure to have Trine with us and we look forward to the remaining three weeks of her internship.

Thank you, Trine!

 

The following post was written by our Director of Programs, Kristine Sullivan.

Visitation Day in Uganda is a big deal. It is the one day per term that student’s look forward to almost as much as they look forward to the last day of exams. Knowing full well that most of our students’ will not have visitors for various reasons, we try our best to get to their respective schools to show them support, guidance, encouragement, and love. And when we can’t, it breaks our hearts.

We have forty-one students at twelve different schools in five different districts. Many Visitation Days are at the same time, but somehow we try to get to each one over the course of a few terms. Luckily, this term I was blessed to be able to visit four separate schools on their Visitation Days.

I get to experience many things on VD. They are essentially parent-teacher conferences, Open House, and a time to check in with the students all wrapped into one. Because of this, there’s certainly some joy, some frustrations, and some soda and snacks: a welcome break from water, posho, and beans all the time.

A few weeks ago on my way back from Kampala, I stopped in Luweero to visit seventeen of our GLOBAL Scholars for a few hours at Pope John Paul II. I first met with the Senior 2 students who were receiving marks for their beginning of term exams. I was happy to see improvement across the board; however, as any parent or guardian would do, I spoke sternly to the students, reminding them of the importance of preparing for exams with seriousness and focus. Thankfully, I was able to meet with the students’ English teacher, as all of them had their lowest marks in that subject. I immediately began to brainstorm how I could tackle this issue head on and gave them some tips for English exams before we parted ways.  (Over this first holiday from school, I have been planning a workshop with our student’s for general study skills and various subject-specific tips for success)!

After I sent the Senior 2 students off to enjoy their Sunday, I met with several Senior 1 students. All eleven of our GLOBAL Scholars sat with me along with five other students from Gulu who apparently wanted to join in on the family fun. You see, a family is not just blood relation.  In fact, family to me is “a group experience of love and support.”  So, the more the merrier.

In Luweero, we sit in a circle and celebrate successes and talk about the struggles of being so far away from home.  Luweero is very different than Gulu.  It is located in central Uganda, about one hour north of Kampala, the capital.  The people in Luweero are from the Buganda tribe and speak Luganda.  I’m telling you, Luganda and Acholi are no where near the same.  The sounds, the way the words roll of the tongue… you could be on opposite sides of the world, really.

Aside from the difference in the local language, the students tell me how they are sick of matooke (boiled, smashed plantains and formed into plops of mystery) and wish they could have posho all the time like at Mother Teresa’s. I laugh. I never thought they would miss the food at Mother Teresa’s.  They will return to Gulu in about ten days.  I know they cannot wait and most of their families have let us in on the surprise that they’ll have a slaughtered chicken waiting for them.  Delicious.

The next weekend I had the opportunity to attend three schools in one day., St. Mary’s Lacor and Graceland Girl’s School. At Graceland we have one GLOBAL Scholar who adores school visitors. Anena Ketty Gloria spotted  me from roughly 500m away and came sprinting towards us as though she had not seen us in years. After quick embraces and her reassurance that indeed, secondary school was getting easier, we got to sit and learn about how she had adjusted much more since our last visit. She told us she started running Track and Field and was making many friends while becoming more comfortable with all fourteen subjects. No, you read that right. Fourteen. After only about an hour, we were off for St. Joseph’s College Layibi; even though the time was short, the timing was just right.

Here at Educate for Change, we consider ourselves a family. In a family, there is give and take.  Sacrifice and service.  Love and compassion.  We all have our various strengths and weaknesses and it is our desire to lead each member of the family to his or her fullest potential.

All of our students, their families, and our staff come together very often at school visits, home visits, and on holidays. We believe that in order to raise a community of educated, focused, committed, and contributing members of society we need to include all stakeholders in open and honest communication and programming. This means that our job does not stop with the student’s and paying their school fees. We want to continue to work alongside the students, their parents or guardians, their teachers, mentors, role models in the community, local politicians, and every one and anyone else. You name it. We want to exhaust our resources to ensure that change happens. And soon.

As we near the end of Term 1, we’ve started to brainstorm new ways Educate for Change will be moving forward. We want to make certain that the joy and familial love we all feel when we gather with our students on Visitation Day and when we travel to see our families deep in the villages endures for many years. We want to continue to embrace more students, often the forgotten or unseen of the community whether it is due to their distant home location, lack of resources, or physical and mental differences that are not yet well understood within many communities here in Uganda. Until that day, I promise you to keep working tirelessly because I firmly believe that if we are to “give light…people will find the way.”

Much love from Gulu.