Today, I'd like to introduce you to the teachers and students of the 12th school of Samtredia (upper right). Attentive readers might recall that my main school is the 3rd school, but even though the other 99% of you didn't notice the discrepancy, I'll just explain that I teach there once a week. Peace Corps calls it "outreach teaching." It's a bit tougher than working at the 3rd school, mostly because the area around the 12th school was destroyed during the civil war in 1993, which caused the local businesses to move elsewhere; thus, the 12th school houses a significantly impoverished student body. Many students can't afford the $7 English textbooks, and most of our classes are conducted in rooms where the majority of the desks are broken, the chairs are backless, and the walls are crumbling. That, and I have to walk 20 minutes in the mud to get there.
But then there's the teachers (who both happen to be named Nana). This is Nana 1. She's a fluent speaker, though she claims to have forgotten everything in her old age. Her dream is to have a full-time Peace Corps volunteer next year so she can learn new teaching techniques. She makes time for lesson planning, and she will try any and all new English activities with her students. Essentially, she's the ideal Peace Corps counterpart.
Example: Projects involving grants are supposed to be initiated and managed by the local community. I hadn't yet mentioned this to Nana, since I didn't plan on writing a grant for a school I only worked with part-time, but then one day she mentioned that the school's students would benefit from an English room. Encouraged but wary of false hope, I explained to her the time-consuming difficulty involved in such a project. When I returned from Christmas break, she had hand-written a manifesto of the 12th school's goals and objectives for this project, as well as an explanation of its value to the community. The next week, she presented me with a detailed budget that included sources of community contribution. I almost cried. The following phone conversation almost occurred:
Me: My counterpart designed a project and set a budget all on her own!
Peace Corps project manager: Yes, they're supposed to do that.
Me: Yeah, I know, but she actually did!
In any case, through Nana's inexhaustable effort and my awakening from jaded disbelief in miracles, we've composed a project. The current situation is that there is no "English classroom" where students can be surrounded by English posters and have access to English books and all that. The English teachers jump from room to room, teaching where space is available; oftentimes, they find themselves without necessary supplies, like chalk or a functional blackboard or students. Nana's project takes an existing room and renders it suitable for learning-- redoing the floors, walls, and ceiling, building a bookshelf, replacing the desks, chairs, and teacher's table, purchasing books and posters, wiring the room for electricity, installing whole windows, et cetera. With a stable learning environment, students will learn English better than they currently are; considering that English literacy is becoming a necessity for finding a well-paying job in Georgia, this is no small feat. The 12th school students are already disadvantaged by their inability to afford private tutors, unlike many of the students at other schools. Through this project, we hope to ameliorate that problem.
Can you imagine learning English here? Picture how much more conducive this space would be to learning if the walls weren't falling apart, and if there were chairs that didn't look like Lenin bought them himself, and if there were happy little English posters all over the wall, and a happy little shelf of English books. Remember the classroom where you took Spanish, and how it said "Bienvenidos" on the brightly-painted wall? That's what we're going for.
Obviously by now, you've guessed that this is a plea for money. Before you run for your wallet, let's add one more fact: despite their poverty, the school and the community have provided 51% of the project price BY THEMSELVES. A local carpenter is going to do the construction and painting for 60% less than he usually charges. The school is going to pay to repair its own tables, desks, and chairs, and is also going to buy a new blackboard.
Those of you who've been here a while may recall last year's link to a web site where you could donate money to our Girls' Sports Camp grant. This is the same kind of grant; the total grant amount is approximately $930, and if you can donate $5, please do! If you can donate $930, please do also! It's tax-deductible. All non-anonymous donors will receive updates with pictures, thank-you emails, and perhaps even thank-you letters (!). Here's exactly what your money is going toward: construction materials and transportation, an audio player, and English resource books.
A final note-- I had to beg and plead to be allowed to submit this grant proposal because I only have 6 months of service left, and since it usually takes a couple months to fund these projects online, Peace Corps is concerned that I won't be able to finish on time. If I can't finish on time, then all the money must be returned, and the 12th school kids must continue to learn English in rooms unfit for broom storage. So, please send the link for this post to ANYBODY you know, preferably with a little personal message so they think it applies to them. My mantra is that we CAN fund this project in 3-4 weeks, and I DO have enough friends to make that a viable goal. More accurately, my friends DO have enough friends to appeal to for donations.
That's all I have. I can only hope that I conveyed how much the school wants this project to succeed, how much support they've given, and how little I had to do with the whole thing. The fate of the English students at Samtredia School #12 rests in your hands! I won't post again until this project is fully funded. See you soon... Remember, donations are tax-deductible.
Click here to help the 12th school build an English classroom!
2 comments:
Why should I contribute to a project that enables more English speakers and thus possibly more foreign competition and American job loss due to outsourcing? Especially when low English test scores and illiteracy still plague many of our nation's public schools?
Unfortunately I've got error:
"We apologize for the inconvenience. This feature is temporarily unavailable while we are updating our site. Please use the following resources to find the information that interests you, or click here to go back to the Peace Corps home page." :(
If recalled, I'll try later :)
4 Victor:
First of all, are you sure low scores and illiteracy are because of expats? And second: As English is getting standard international speaking language these children will need to know it even far far away from US, and especially here in Georgia.
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