Dear Parents,
I am writing to inform you about a special project that our class will be participating in during the month of November.
A good friend of mine will be traveling to Zambia, Africa in the beginning of December. Her name is Debby Caselton, and she is studying to be a nurse practitioner or pediatrician at the School of Public Health in Minneapolis, MN. This will be Debby's second trip to Zambia as part of an outreach program to provide health care to the women and children of Africa who are faced with severe poverty in areas near Zambia. For her second trip, Debby has asked that our classroom write the children letters and draw them pictures. The children of Zambia will receive these letters and pictures as they wait in long lines to undergo tests and treatments. Debby will provide the children of Zambia supplies to write us back and draw us pictures to help us learn more about their lives in Africa.
We will write letters and draw pictures during our free time during the month of November, so that I can get them to Debby by Thanksgiving. She will leave for Africa after the first week of December.
I could just ask the students to write letters to the children of Africa, but I want our students to understand this part of the world and why these letters and pictures are so important to these children. The children of Zambia face many health issues and extreme poverty. So in conjunction with this project, our class is going to be learning a little bit about mosquito nets and how they save children’s lives and prevent them from contracting malaria. Learning about their lifestyle and how mosquito nets can save the life of a child is a concrete idea that our students will be able to understand. I will be using the following website to help your children understand this idea. This is a program concentrated on the effort to provide families with mosquito nets. This website provides facts about malaria and the country of Africa. This website also provides information for any of you who would like to become involved in providing mosquito nets to the children of Africa.
By participating in this project, I want our students to learn about their communities and see how our letters and pictures can make a difference in their lives. In addition, this project will allow us to explore the attitude of empathy and what it means to feel empathy towards others. It will allow us to focus on being caring and open-minded towards this way of life that is much different than our own. This project will allow us to reflect on our own lives, especially during November, a time to reflect on how thankful we are for the good things in our lives.
In preparing our students for the IB program that is now a part of our school, I think this is a wonderful way to help our students become internationally-minded, to learn the attitude of empathy, and to practice the learner profile attributes of being open-minded, reflective, caring, and knowledgeable.
This is a very basic project. I will use one or two class periods to talk to the students about Africa and malaria. We will learn the facts, as well as the lifestyles of some African communities. Then, during any free time (milk breaks, finishing homework assignments, etc.) during the month of November, students will be writing letters and coloring pictures to the children of Africa. There will also be a family page sent home so your children can inform you about what they’ve learned.
We may not always be able to make monetary donations towards a cause, but we can still make a difference in the lives of others by what we do. I am looking forward to sharing this project with your children. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this, please feel free to contact me!
Miss Guay
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