No Poverty: Exploring the UN Sustainable Goal at our Winter Meeting
Cathy Berger Kaye led the ECSL Winter 2018 meeting, where she unpacked the issue of poverty and how teachers can use the related UN Sustainable Goal to help address the issue locally with students. Take a look inside the meeting to learn how!
Save the Date: Fun-raising & Fundraising for Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone Rising (formerly the Kposowa Foundation) is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with an evening of African drumming & dance, salsa dance performances, and fundraising for projects in Sierra Leone. Thanks to ECSL advisor, Sarah Culberson (co-founder of Sierra Leone Rising) for sharing this local opportunity to effect change in the areas of education, public health and female empowerment in West Africa.
The Earth Meets Apps
Looking for ways to integrate technology and your environmental service learning curriculum? MINDSHIFT, an educational blog focusing on the future of education, shares four educational apps that center around environmental awareness: Apps That Challenge Kids to Solve Environmental Issues
High School Opportunity: Human Trafficking LA Youth Poster Contest
Lauren McCabe of Westridge School (an ECSL member school) shares this opportunity to raise your students’ awareness for the critical issue of human trafficking:
Students at Westridge have been working with a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies on a youth poster contest focused on the issue of human trafficking, presenting a tangible way for students to get involved in the issue. The poster contest is designed for students ages 14 to 25. After the contest, students at Westridge will be organizing a conference/workshop that trains peers to be advocates in the implementation of SB 1193 and the posting of fliers at businesses affected by the bill. This training will take place in early February, with more information to follow as the details of the training become available. This will also be a great way for your students to get involved in the issue of human trafficking.
A link to information regarding the poster contest announced by the National Council for Jewish Women, Los Angeles is included here.
Water Planet Challenge 10/30
EarthEcho International Presents a
Water Planet Challenge Workshop:
Out the Spout & Down the Drain
Led by Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A., author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning
and Kyra Kristof, Director of Learning for EarthEcho International
OCTOBER 30, 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Hosted at Windward School, 11350 Palms Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066
Bring science content to life with Water Planet Challenge Action Guides. These easy to use materials integrate service-learning and citizen journalism into your academics and provides students a comprehensive understanding of contemporary local water quality issues. Can students become community leaders to benefit the health of our water planet? Will you join the Water Planet Challenge?
EarthEcho International offers exciting, interactive workshops for middle and high school educators and their students. Rooted in service-learning and focused on action, these workshops examine how our every day actions make a difference, and how we can make sure the differences we make protect our water planet.
Register for this dynamic three-hour workshop and explore what comes OUT THE SPOUT, goes DOWN THE DRAIN, and youth citizen journalism strategies to enhance service-learning and academic outcomes.
We need to drink water. Does the water we choose to drink matter? Drinking water from local resources, even on the go, protects threatened global water resources, and protects us from potentially harmful chemicals. Worried there might be more coming out your spout than water? Bottled water is not the answer. Do we stop and think that everything we send down the drain—including products that wash off our bodies or pass through our bodies—can end up back in local waterways, the ocean, and our water supply? Why does knowing this matter? With our limited global water supply and current droughts, we do need to make every drop count.
Learn! Discover! Explore!
• Out the Spout—Learn why filtered tap water is always best; find out how you can become part of the Anti-Bottle movement that helps communities kick their plastic water bottle habit while raising money for water-related projects in their own backyard or across the globe.
• Down the Drain—Discover tools you can use to investigate what is going down your drain; develop and implement a plan to defend your drain (and others) from toxins.
• Citizen Journalism—Explore how multi-media documentation of the service-learning process enhances student achievement and gives youth a voice in protecting the environment as citizen journalists.
TO REGISTER, visit https://earthecho.wufoo.com/forms/earthecho-water-planet-challenge-workshop/
Or send an email to mia@earthecho.org $25 per adult | Scholarships Available: email mia@earthecho.org
SPACE IS LIMITED! Reserve your space now! Registration includes copies of TWO Action Guides
Additional resources available for purchase on site Light refreshments served. Carpool, please!
Thanks to the Educators Consortium for Service Learning for their assistance
Girl Up UN Opportunity for Your Students
Hi,
My name is Annie Gersh, and I am a member of the Girl Up club at Marlborough School as well as the Co-Chair for the Girl Up Teen Advisor Board. I am currently working on a project for Girl Up, an innovative campaign of the United Nations Foundation. They give American girls the opportunity to become global leaders and channel their energy and compassion to raise awareness and funds for United Nations programs that help some of the world’s hardest-to-reach adolescent girls.
I am working towards creating a Los Angeles coalition of Girl Up supporters made up of Girl Up club heads, teen advisors, and student activists. Through this coalition, the hope is to create inter school events to educate students and raise awareness so that together we can have a larger impact. This coalition will serve as a model for cities across the country, and I would love it if your students could be a part of this project. If there are students at your school who are in 7th grade or older and would be interested in being a part of this coalition, I would really appreciate it if you could send me their information or pass along this email.
Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Annie Gersh
Grade 9
Marlborough School
More information on Girl Up
http://www.girlup.org
—
The Challenges
There are more than 500 million adolescent girls living in developing countries today. These girls are bright, talented and full of dreams, but are often unable to reach their full potential.
Many of them struggle for the opportunity to go to school, see a doctor or be included in their communities. This has serious consequences including: low levels of enrollment in school, high levels of child marriage and way too many girls facing health risks from pregnancy and early child birth.
The Solution
Girl Up believes that American girls are a part of the solution. We know that girls give, girls talk and girls get involved. This generation of girls cares about global issues and is concerned about the challenges facing other girls around the world.
Global Volunteer Opportunity
Aid Africa (http://www.aidafrica.net), in partnership with Giving Children Hope (http://gchope.org), is looking for volunteers and support to assemble 5,000 Birthing Kits for shipment and use among Uganda’s rural poor. Just one day’s work can save 10,000 lives! Each year 500,000 African babies die from infection following birth. The risk of this infection can be greatly reduced by providing basic elements of medical sanitation during childbirth.
There are two ways to help:
Monetary Donation:
A $10 donation to Aid Africa cover the cost, including shipment, for one Birthing Kit. Donations can be made online at the organization’s website: http://www.aidafrica.net.
All donations are tax-deductible.
Volunteer to Assemble the Kits:
Volunteers are need to assemble the kits. Snacks will be provided.
- When: Saturday, October 27, 2012 between 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Where: Giving Children Hope’s warehouse, 8332 Commonwealth Avenue, Buena Park, CA 90621
For more information and/or to sign up to help, contact: info@aidafrica.net or call (818) 249-2398. Additional information will be available on the Aid Africa website soon.
BeadforLife Curriculum
Are you an educator or youth group leader looking for a way to engage your students in global poverty issues? BeadforLife is proud to offer an interactive service learning curriculum to help educators and youth join in the fight against poverty.
BeadforLife is a nonprofit organization that works to eradicate extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads. Women in Northern Uganda, displaced by a 20-year war, are now rebuilding their lives by gathering shea nuts and pressing them into shea butter for cosmetics and soaps. And people who care open their hearts, homes and communities to buy and sell both products. The beads and shea butter become income, food, medicine, school fees and hope. It is a small miracle that enriches us all.
The BeadforLife Curriculum is designed for grades 6-12 but is easily adapted for younger and older students. Students will use hands-on activities, simulations, and discussions to better understand global poverty and ways they can take concrete actions to help.
Using the curriculum is easy and BeadforLife has included everything to support you from start to finish including step-by-step instructions, reproducible handouts, video, original African music and much more.
“I went online, was intrigued by the examples shared and decided to purchase the full package. And I am so happy that I did. I truly think it added to the students understanding of Africa and poverty. It was amazing how it complimented our current curriculum and even took it to the next level of awareness.”
Kristie Coughlin — Silver Lake Intermediate School
In the Take Action section of the curriculum students will learn about how they can help eradicate poverty locally and globally. One option presented is to host a BeadforLife “Fundraising with Curriculum” BeadParty and raise funds for the organization of your choice. Your organization will receive a donation check for 20% of funds raised at your BeadParty. Hosting a BeadParty is fun and easy. BeadforLife will support you every step of the way.
Visit BeadforLife.org for more information. Local Southern California contact: Stacey Constantine, Community Partner Volunteer
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