-Indian Student Presents Project on Social Injustice-

 

Carleton College student Anushka Patel hosted a gathering last Thursday, March 18 at the Hideaway Winebar where she presented a screening of her video project as part of a CCC program with ASHA's Better Life Education Program in India. 

 

Anushka, born in Mumbai, traveled to Pune last December to work with ASHA girls living in the slums. She spent two days with the girls where she first discussed the concept of social injustice. This was a very eye-opening experience for her as most of the Indian girls were unaware of was social injustice was, even though they were surrounded by it on a daily basis.

 

Afterwards, she conducted an art project where the ASHA girls were asked to create art that expressed their feelings about an aspect of social injustice that they felt strongly about. Asushka filmed the making of the projects, as well as the girls' explanations, which included issues such as pollution, child marriages, expensive dowrys that women's families are forced to pay and how poror poeple are often exploited by the wealthy.

 

 

-Northfield Students Raising Money for War Kids Relief-

 

Seventeen year old Sarah Tiano is leading the charge on an creative and impactful project that helps Northfield teens learn more about the plight of their peers in war zones, as well as get involved to help make a difference for them.

 

Sarah has designed handmade “peace bracelets” that she is selling in local shops to raise money for a new WKR project that will help an Afghan IDP (internally displaced person) in Kabul be able to start a small, income generating business in order to help provide for his family.

 

To produce the 500 bracelets needed, Sarah is hosting bracelet-making parties where area youth can come and have fun together while helping support the cause. At each party, Sarah provides snacks, as well as an informative presentation on the plight of war kids and how making a little $5 bracelet can actually make a big difference.

Sarah is also making presentations to area churches and youth groups in an effort to garner more support for the cause.

 

For information on future bracelet-making parties or presentations contact Sarah at sarah.tiano @ gmail.com.

 

 

 

-Cannon Falls Sixth Graders Learning from Afghan Teen-

 

 

On February 19, students in the Cannon Falls, Minnesota, 6th grade social studies classes began week one of WKR’s ten-week pilot program on Afghanistan.

 

Session one presented a cultural overview of Afghanistan where kids learned interesting cultural facts, watched a video montage of modern life in Kabul, and had fun participating in a cross-cultural communication activity that taught them how to avoid making judgements about other cultural groups.

 

The highlight of the session, however, was when the students watched the first video featuring Karima.

 

Karima is a 14-year old girl living in Kabul who Dina met during her trip there in December. Karima expressed her dream of becoming a TV reporter when she grows up, so Dina hired her to make video lessons for the pilot project. Each week she will introduce the American kids to a new and interesting aspect of Afghan culture.

 

“Every kids eyes were glued to the screen as they heard Karima tell her story,” said Dina. “They really related to her as a peer, a friend…which was our goal. After it was over, they all commented on how easy their lives are as Americans, how strong and brave Karima is, and how often they take their education for granted.”

 

 

To watch Karima’s first video please go to:

http://www.vimeo.com/8646811

password: maktab

 

 

-Indian Girls' Photography Exhibit on Display-

 

From January through March 2010, New Perspectives, New Possibilities, a powerful photography exhibit created by girls living in an Indian slum will be on display at the Hideaway Coffeeshop & Winebar in downtown Northfield.

 

The photographs were taken by girls in ASHA's Better Life Education Program, CCC’s India charity partner that helps at-risk girls in India’s oppressive slums break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and domestic violence by fostering self esteem and encouraging education.

 

The exhibit is a result of a CCC program where last spring 30 Northfield girls exchanged journals with 30 ASHA girls. Rich Koechlein, who led the project, traveled to India. While there, using donated digital cameras, he also gave the ASHA girls a photography lesson and sent them out to photograph their worlds. What they came back with was an amazing perspective, and an experience they claimed was the most empowering of their young lives. 

 

 

 

-Culture in the Classroom-

A dozen grade school kids in two Twin Cities classes learned about China and Guatemala this winter, thanks to Children’s Culture Connection’s classroom presentations.

 

Both school groups were at Groves Academy, a St. Louis Park, Minnesota, school that specializes in educating children with learning disabilities. In December each of the grade school classes at Groves was studying a different country; Guatemala and China were chosen in part because a child in those classrooms was born in those countries.

 

A CCC representative raised in China, and another who has traveled trough Guatemala, showed the kids pictures of the countries and discussed their history, culture, foods, and children’s games. Then the students decorated large human body outlines designed to represent themselves or the person they would like to be, writing their names and other relevant information on the backs. Those drawings will later be shared with children in CCC’s China and Guatemala children’s charities, possibly leading to further cultural exchanges.

 

 

 

 

-Peru Charity Founder Visits Minnesota-

 

CCC supporters in Minnesota will have a chance to meet the founder of our Peruvian charity, Angels of the Amazon, when Dolly Beaver comes to Cannon Falls on September 6 and 7.

 

Beaver is coming to Cannon Falls—the nearest sizable town to Dennison, Minnesota, where CCC’s headquarters are based—to do a presentation at the Cannon River Winery there about her organization and to help host a fundraiser for it.

 

Angels of the Amazon (AOA) is a nonprofit group supporting the health and educational needs of children living in a remote Amazon rainforest area. AOA has already helped dozens of children receive medical treatments, such as eye surgeries and cancer treatments, and scholarships, so they might continue in school.

 

In conjunction with this charity, Beaver has organized a local cooperative of women in a hand-crafted basket business that helps the women support their families. The baskets will be on sale in nearby Northfield, Minnesota, at the Main St. Moravian Church (Division St. & 8th St) on Sunday, September 7 during that community's annual Defeat of Jesse James Days celebration. Beaver will attend the basket sale to talk with guests about her work.

 

 

-Executive Director Visits Kurdistan-

  

Fashion designer (and CCC executive director) Dina Fesler and makeup artist Sandra Hakim will travel to an Iraqi refugee camp in Kurdistan this month to work with kids caught in the crossfire of war.

 

Fesler and Hakim, accompanied by human rights photographer Paul Corbit Brown, will work with 40 Iraqi kids at the Nawroz Children Culture Center in Sulymania on a daylong art project utilizing the concept of "fashion as a communication medium," through which the kids will tell their stories.

 

Using fabric scraps, paint, and other craft materials, the children will be asked to create a character on paper that tells a story. They'll be encouraged to use the concepts of fashion to communicate different aspects of their character's personality and life story. The character could be anything from the child herself to a Super Hero alter-ego. Each kid will be encouraged to share the story of the character they create, as well as its relation to that child's life.

 

Afterwards the artwork will be brought back to the United States, where it will go on tour through a nationwide art exhibit sponsored by Rotary International, thus bringing the voices of these refugee children around the world.

 

Revisit this online newsletter in September for a report and photographs from the project.

 

 

-CCC at Latin American Culture Camp-

  

Surrounded by dozens of Colombian, Guatemalan, Chilean, and Paraguayan kids, CCC board members Dina Fesler and Lynette Lamb worked a booth at the July 2008 market day of La Semana, a weeklong culture camp for Latin American adoptees and other children of Latin American descent.

 

La Semana, now in its 27^th year, was held at a large Lutheran church in Lakeville, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Vendors hawked various Latin American items, such as woven bracelets and purses, burlap carry-alls, and Latino baby dolls.

 

The Guatemala T-shirts designed by Fesler sold particularly well at the CCC booth. Like everything CCC does, the T-shirts are educational as well as fun: the design includes 10 items about Guatemalan culture and history and the T-shirts come with tags explaining those items.

 

Plans are now in the works to produce Chinese and Russian T-Shirts, which are expected to be of particular interest to those large adoptee groups. For more informatino about La Semana, please go to www.lasemana.org

 

 

-CCC Teaches Third Graders About China-

 

An Eden Prairie, Minnesota, classroom of third graders now knows all about Chinese geography, joss paper, homemade kites, and many other unique aspects of Chinese culture, thanks to an educational presentation on China put on in April by CCC executive director Dina Fesler, China native Echo Huang and CCC Classroom Project Coordinator, Kathy Braga.

 

Huang, a board member of CCC-supported charity China AIDS Orphan Fund (CAOF), is a native of Shenzhen, China. She showed slides of China as well as photos from her own childhood there, and talked with the Prairie View Elementary School kids about hobbies and other things kids enjoy doing in China.

 

Dina and Echo showed the kids Chinese calligraphy, joss paper (sheets of paper burned in traditional ancestor worship ceremonies during holidays), incense sticks, and marble chops (carved seals) and discussed the significance of all of these in Chinese culture.

 

Finally, the third-graders listened to CDs of Chinese children’s music as they wrote messages to send to their Chinese peers in the CAOF program. Their messages included one thing that they had learned about China that day, and one thing they wanted Chinese kids to know about American culture—such as soccer, music, and Minnesota weather.

 

 

 

-Voyage to India-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XGOsZD5rQ

 

Parveen is 17 and lives in the Morwadi community, a slum neighborhood in Pune, India. The only child of a single mother, she has passed her 11^th standard exams, the equivalent of 11^th grade in the U.S., and after a final year of school will head to Pune’s Garware College in summer 2009 to study commerce.

 

Parveen is one of the 26 teenagers in the ASHA Better Life Education Program who spent a week in April taking tours and doing art projects with CCC board members Dina Fesler and Lynette Lamb. So far she is the only one of the group heading to college.

 

Because she is intelligent and her English is excellent, Parveen soon found herself serving as an additional translator for the week. She was in the awkward position of having to instruct her peers, but handled the assignment with grace and tact.

 

During trips to parks, restaurants, and hill stations, Parveen helped move the girls into groups, line them up for photos, and instructed them in art and photo assignments.

 

Unlike many of her friends, who will work as domestic servants or seamstresses, and then marry at 18, Parveen hopes to eventually earn a doctorate, and not marry until her twenties. The Morwadi community will pay the 1,000 rupees a year ($25) her tuition will cost; perhaps she will even come to the U.S. for graduate school.

 

In contrast, there is another ASHA girl named Parveen, also 17, who is engaged to be married next year. Meanwhile, she works as a “stitcher” or seamstress. She is quiet and serious, as if she knows this girlish time of games and songs and giggling is nearing an end.

 

Then there is little Shridevi, 13, a merry sprite of a girl who is the size of an American 9-year-old. Her face is full of joy and light and she fairly skips through life. Shridevi is in the sixth standard at school, has three sisters and one brother, and loves to swim so much she aspires to be a mermaid. So far her nautical adventures have been confined to the drainage canal in her community, but she dreams of the day she can swim amidst the fish and coral.

What the ASHA and CCC staff dream of is that all these girls continue in school at least through the 10^th

standard. Passing that hurdle is the ticket to a decent white-collar job in India—as a receptionist, preschool aide, or hotel desk clerk. Dropping out before that time means many fewer options. Most girls with less schooling are confined to work as domestic servants, factory workers, or seamstresses.

 

In April, Children’s Culture Connection led a week of tours to parks, restaurants, and a bus trip to the mountains, along with leading various art projects. The week was designed to broaden the girls’ worlds, get them thinking, and further encourage them to stay in school.

By week’s end, three of the girls who had dropped out after the 7^th standard had decided to return to their  studies. Minal Dani, ASHA’s administrator, was already working on hiring a tutor for the group by the time Dina and Lynette had left India.

 

The hopes and dreams of the ASHA girls were made manifest through the paintings, photographs, and journal writings they did over the course of the week. Shridevi’s 14-year-old sister, Anita, may have summarized their longings best, when she was asked why she had painted a fish and a butterfly: “I want to cross through the rivers like a fish; I want to travel the world like a butterfly.”

  

How you can help ASHA girls   CCC will continue to annually fund ASHA’s program for girls and will also be starting a general education fund for the group, which will pay for tutoring and miscellaneous school expenses, and ultimately for college scholarships, to encourage these girls to stay in and/or return to school. To make a donation, write a check to Children’s Culture Connection and designate India/ASHA Education Fund in the memo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Haiti Comes to Edina- 

Although only a one-hour flight from the U.S., Haiti remains an enigma to many Americans. That's no longer true, however, for a group of six-year olds at Edina, Minnesota's Normandale Elementary French Immersion School.

 

CCC executive director Dina Fesler spoke in April to two kindergarten classes at Normandale School about Haitian culture and the children she met during her recent visit to Haiti. Dina spent a week in the Caribbean country in March, learning more about CCC's Haitian charity L'Athletique d'Haiti.

 

During her visit to the Edina school, Dina showed the children photos and homemade toys made by the kids in the L'Athletique d'Haiti program, as well as a video of them performing a song. As a special treat, a Haitian woman came to share stories of growing up in Haiti and to teach them Compa dancing. The Minnesota kids, in turn, produced their own video of songs to send to the Haitian kids, and are now busy making French ABC books to send to children in a Haitian orphanage as well.

 

-Attend CCC’s Annual Fundraiser-

 

-A Week in Haiti-