Classroom Stories


Please browse our archive of stories posted by Volunteers and Partners who have connected their work with academic curricula and/or service-learning programs at other schools around the world.
 

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July 30

July 30, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

 Earlier this summer I met a twenty-six year old volunteer  from Italy who had come to work for an NGO in Kabul.  She left me with a parting gift today, a Penguin edition of Swift’s satire, Gulliver’s Travels. Simultaneously I happened to read a senior thesis written by a student from a prestigious New England college who had interviewed me last winter when I was touring America giving talks and raising money for AFCECO.  As far as I can tell both women had had bad experiences volunteering abroad, involving a falling out with the host organization, cultural clashes, confused feelings of shame while being indignant over what they saw as unjustifiable misrepresentation and mishandling by the NGO, as well as a lack of guidance.  I may be jumping to conclusions, but...

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July 23

July 24, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

Winding along the edge of a cliff that plummets a thousand feet, I gave a silent prayer of thanks to the Chinese company that built the road from Kabul to Jalalabad, for doing the impossible and doing it well.  I also prayed that now was not the time for one of the frequent rockslides to whisk away hapless travelers.  Jamshid pushed an old cassette tape into the dashboard.  “I used to listen to this a long time ago,” he said, “when I was in school in the refugee camp.”  This is all that I knew ahead of my first road trip in Afghanistan: we would go to Jalalabad, which is at the foot of Taliban country, to visit our two orphanages there.  It would take about 2 ½ hours to...

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July 16

July 16, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

I have completed the curriculum for the rest of the year. If you sponsor an older child in Kabul, she or he is going to enjoy a very demanding but I hope fun second semester to the school year. I am going with the topical approach to teaching English. Why not learn something while we learn the language? When I was in first grade, everything was divided into colors.GoldMeetra, Murcel, Sadaf, Nasrin, Nahida, Malalai, Malalai Butterfly, Sana1) Natural landscapes of the world: Sahara desert, Mt. Everest, Olympic rainforest, Siberia, Amazon River, Tahiti2) Animals of the world: condor, mountain goat, praying mantis, hippo, octopus, sperm whaleTurquoiseFarzana Nori, Khalida, Zainab, Leema, Parwana (Parwana moved up)1) History of Afghanistan through its...

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July 9

July 08, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

 On the morning of January 9th, 2001, two men forcibly entered a small mud-bricked home near the village of Yakawlang, Afghanistan only to find a black haired, black eyed, freckle-faced, five-year old Hazara girl alone in the room stoking a heater.  The girl looked at the men’s faces, then at their Kalashnikov rifles that already dripped beads of melting frost onto the floor.  “Where is your father?” one of them asked, without introduction.The girl was stunned.  She didn’t know what to say.  The men dressed like Taliban, their guns were Taliban, but they looked different.  She glanced again at their faces.  They were not Pashtun.  They were from somewhere else; they spoke Dari, but poorly, and their noses were strange, and their beards, and beneath the dirt their skin was...

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Story from a volunteer with us

July 05, 2010

Vivekananda Trust , India

see the following link for the article. http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B68VhNcQTOQ7ODllMDhhOWEtMjZlMi00MjA2LTg4MDctZGJkZmU2NDgyNjA3&hl=en  

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W.H.A.C. Testimonial by Greg Bodlovick

July 04, 2010

Wings of Hope Alliance for Cambodia, Inc. (WHAC), USA

I am Greg Bodlovick and would like to respond to your query regarding the Organization known as W.H.A.C. .Let me start with some background information regarding myself. I am the Manager within the Largest Wholesaler of Plumbing/Heating/PVF Construction products in the Northeast namely FW Webb Co.I have been in this function since 1979.(for more info on FW Webb Co and myself go to www.centraldistributionsales.com click on Virtual Tour and I am hosting it) I have always enjoyed my high level of Volunterrism which goes back some time, some of the areas that I have helped in over the decades; Ingraham Volunteers which I was a Crisis Counselor on a hot line Catholic Charities-Refugee Resettlement Project helping Refugees and Orphans resettle in the USA Worked with Ms. Channary Prak and Myself as Translators(volunteer) for Hospitals,...

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July 2nd

July 02, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is to never die.”This is a quote attached anonymously to a video commemorating the life of Carl Sagan.  The video was brought to my attention this morning by a man who sponsors a child at Sitara I.  Sometimes I just like Nasruddin Hodha the foolish Mullah of Persian folklore, arrive on Friday with a blank mind. Seeing where that quote takes my thoughts, I trust somehow this page will be filled.From what I can gather this is actually a quote by Thomas Campbell, not Sagan.  I doubt Sagan would ever have concerned himself seriously with the immortality of an individual soul.  He was interested in the future of the planet.  But the quote and the man nevertheless are now entwined, as thousands of people...

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College Success for First Batch of Shanti Bhavan Graduates

June 30, 2010

Shanti Bhavan, India

It is an exciting time for Shanti Bhavan. Our 12th grade children are going off to colleges to pursue a variety of majors, including Computer Science and Electronics, Psychology, Biotechnology and Chemistry, Business Management, Economics, Accountancy and Law.   They will be attending The National Law School of India, Mt. Carmel, St. Joseph’s and Christ College all in Bangalore.Our choice of colleges for the graduates was based on their reputation for academic excellence. Mt. Carmel, St. Joseph’s and Christ College are among the top 10 undergraduate colleges in India. Many of India’s national leaders and business executives have studied in these colleges. The National Law College in Bangalore is rated as the best law college in India. Those who successfully complete law degrees from it...

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"Seeds of Hope" Jewelry Project

June 29, 2010

Hogar de Esperanza Orphanage, Peru
Jennifer Turner

        Here at the Hogar de Esperanza orphanage, we have a program called "Seeds of Hope," where the kids make beaded jewelry using seeds and beads found locally in Peru.  The bracelets, necklaces, and earings they make are later sold to groups of short-term volunteers or visitors to the orphanage in Trujillo, and also occasionally in the U.S., through American volunteers.    The majority of the profits made from each item of jewelry sold directly benefits the child who made it.  Most of the money gets put into a special savings account in the child's name, and he or she will receive the money in the account upon leaving the orphanage, or upon turning 18, whichever comes first.   A small portion of the profit from each item sold is givin directly to the child who made it, in the...

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June 25

June 24, 2010

AFCECO, Afghanistan
Ian Pounds

 Bashardost, his given name, means lover of humanity.  Ramazan of course refers to the month of fasting, a month of sacrifice.  As people die in this war (for NATO and ISAF soldiers and Marines the worst month in the war’s nine year history, for civilians the worst year), and as oil slowly suffocates the life out of the Gulf, it is a lie if I say I particularly love humanity, and as I see the only sacrifice being made is by average people, not the ones in power, not the ones with the money and hands on the wheel, I grow tired of caring.  There do not seem to be any alternatives to capitalism, as all other systems equally succumb to the same and sometimes even more brutal arrangement.  I...

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