Post by d204mom on Mar 11, 2008 9:18:43 GMT -6
Book program takes off
Peterson Elementary helps poor students in Uganda
March 11, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
All over the multi-purpose room at Peterson Elementary School, dozens of kids were creating dozens of alphabet books.
There were the ABCs of animals and the ABCs of food.
Then there was the textbook that fourth-graders Hannah Gardener and Kaylee Thompson took an entire week to create: Brain Teasers and Word Searches.
"That way they can do some learning, but also have some fun," Hannah said, flipping through 12 pages of puzzles.
Their effort impressed Stacie Haen-Darden, a parent who organized the event.
"These are fabulous. They're my favorite," she said. "They are going to absolutely love that."
But who are they?
They are the children who attend Ocim Primary School in Gulu, Uganda.
Ocim has 313 students ranging from 6 to 15 years old. These students face abject poverty, and do not have access to instructional materials, food, decent housing, transportation and other basic needs. At Ocim, there are no facilities for the administrative activities needed to run a school, and the teachers have no accommodations.
The school has been adopted by Books of Hope, a service-learning program where U.S. schools sponsor a school abroad and create books to help meet the students' educational needs. Through Books of Hope, Ocim has requested 6,646 books in different subject areas and grade levels.
"They basically have nothing," Haen-Darden said. "So our books will be the books they learn from."
Haen-Darden learned of this opportunity from a student she supervised when she worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That student couldn't lead this project in her community this year, as she's in India, distributing books to another school the project has adopted. So she asked Haen-Darden if she could pick up the project and run with it in her community.
She did, and she has been amazed by Peterson's reaction to the opportunity, as many people from across the school community donated their time, talent, money and materials to make Peterson's effort more successful than she'd ever imagined.
"I thought we'd get like 60 books and maybe $100," Haen-Darden said. "But this community really pulled together and it just became this huge thing."
Peterson Elementary helps poor students in Uganda
March 11, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
All over the multi-purpose room at Peterson Elementary School, dozens of kids were creating dozens of alphabet books.
There were the ABCs of animals and the ABCs of food.
Then there was the textbook that fourth-graders Hannah Gardener and Kaylee Thompson took an entire week to create: Brain Teasers and Word Searches.
"That way they can do some learning, but also have some fun," Hannah said, flipping through 12 pages of puzzles.
Their effort impressed Stacie Haen-Darden, a parent who organized the event.
"These are fabulous. They're my favorite," she said. "They are going to absolutely love that."
But who are they?
They are the children who attend Ocim Primary School in Gulu, Uganda.
Ocim has 313 students ranging from 6 to 15 years old. These students face abject poverty, and do not have access to instructional materials, food, decent housing, transportation and other basic needs. At Ocim, there are no facilities for the administrative activities needed to run a school, and the teachers have no accommodations.
The school has been adopted by Books of Hope, a service-learning program where U.S. schools sponsor a school abroad and create books to help meet the students' educational needs. Through Books of Hope, Ocim has requested 6,646 books in different subject areas and grade levels.
"They basically have nothing," Haen-Darden said. "So our books will be the books they learn from."
Haen-Darden learned of this opportunity from a student she supervised when she worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That student couldn't lead this project in her community this year, as she's in India, distributing books to another school the project has adopted. So she asked Haen-Darden if she could pick up the project and run with it in her community.
She did, and she has been amazed by Peterson's reaction to the opportunity, as many people from across the school community donated their time, talent, money and materials to make Peterson's effort more successful than she'd ever imagined.
"I thought we'd get like 60 books and maybe $100," Haen-Darden said. "But this community really pulled together and it just became this huge thing."