The connection I made at lunch has affected my entire school! I sat at a table with Yohannes Gebregeorgis, the founder of Ethiopia Reads. I didn't know who he was, so through our conversation, I learned how he began Ethiopia Reads and his involvement in creating schools in his home country. I explained my district's initiative this year which is to make connections around the world and provide opportunities for our students to think globally. It was a perfect match.
We discussed connecting our 2 schools and partnering up the children for pen pals. We exchanged cards and the process has already begun. We will be partnering up my 5th graders with his 5, 6, and 7th graders for pen pals. He said the older children in his school have had enough English to be able to write letters to the students in my school. I talked to all the 5th grade classes when I got back from the conference and they loudly gasped when I told them the news!!
After discussing Ethiopia Reads with Johannes, we developed another project to send to his students. My students have selected a picture book that they would like to read to a student in Ethiopia. We are going to film every 5th grader reading their picture book and create a DVD of 67 stories being read. This will be our contribution to their country - bringing American literature to them without the cost of buying and sending the books. My students are so excited about the project and can hardly wait to begin taping next week.
My principal feels so strongly about this project that she would like to see every child in our school get the chance to read a book and then we can distribute the video to many organizations all over the world. This all came from my lunch with Yohannes!
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