Well, two students of Access Academy asked to meet with a few teachers tonight to discuss wanting to do something for the earthquake victims in China. Talk about turning a bunch of development-obsessed, idealistic, 'let's save the world' types into proud mamas. not that we can take any credit for the fact that the two students began our discussion by showing up pictures, providing us details and explaining why they felt they needed to do something for the victims of the earthquakes and aftershocks; most of these girls/young women have made it this far in terms of education because of their 'go get 'em' attitude and their desire to change their surroundings. Regardless, to hear two students speak about how they felt especially terrible that many of the victims of the earthquake were students, in class, and how much they wanted to start helping in any way they could -- it was rather impressive, to say the least.
So, on Thursday, after our guest speaker of the week, we'll hopefully be having a minute of silence for the victims after the students explain exactly what has happened since the earthquake. Within the next few weeks, they want to have the entire student body write letters to hospital patients and prepare care packages with blankets and other necessary items.
There's nothing better than seeing others empowered by encouragement from just one person --- these particular two students, one from Nepal and one from Bangladesh, told us that they've never had teachers who would speak with them one on one, inside or outside of the class...i can't wait to see what else our students end up doing (right now there is a poster in our cafeteria about potentially starting an organization to work with street kids in the area, and ideas are being spoken of every day)...
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