-Global Celebration-

Saturday, June 20, 2009 

CCC's Cultural Carnival featured displays, crafts and activities from six countries:

China, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iraq,

Russia and Nigeria.

 

CCC charity directors were on hand to discuss their work with the

children's charity in that area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-War Kids Relief Takes Off-

 

The residents of Northfield, Minnesota, didn’t let a little winter weather stop them from coming out to support the launch of Children’s Culture Connection’s War Kids Relief program on January 9.

 

Nearly 100 people attended the reception/fundraiser for War Kids at the headquarters of College City Beverage in Dundas, MN. The next day War Kids held its first Young Ambassador Program at the Northfield Public Library.

 

The Young Ambassador Program, a pilot program which will be offered in New York City and suburban Washington, D.C. as well as in Northfield, is designed to educate American kids about Iraq, its culture, people, and history, and then to build connections between U.S. and Iraqi kids.

 

At the launch reception guests heard from program directors Pam Middleton, Charles London, and Sandra Hakim, as well as from CCC executive director Dina Fesler. (Pictured above left to right: Sandra Hakim, Charles London, Dina Fesler, Pam Middleton, Gunnar Swanson)

 

The hit of the night, however, was the moving talk given by military veteran Gunnar Swanson, a new War Kids team member who spoke of his encounters with the children of Iraq, and of his strong desire to prevent the children of the US and Iraq from experiencing war as he has.

 

Swanson will be doing a cross-country walk later this year to raise money for War Kids Relief.

 

-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.

 

For more information about CCC’s classroom presentations, contact Kathy Braga at kmbraga@msn.com.

 

-Passport to the World Event a Big Success!-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-First Cultural Carnival ALSO a Big Success!-

 

More than a hundred kids and dozens of their parents and grandparents had a great time at Children’s Culture Connection’s first cultural carnival, held Sept. 12 in a suburb of St. Paul.

 

Kids and parents alike enjoyed taking on the cultural challenges at each booth—walking with a basket balanced on the head at the Nigeria booth; writing their name in Cyrillic characters in the Bulgaria booth; and practicing calligraphy at the China booth.

 

Those challenges, each of which cost $1 to try, raised money to support the educational needs of children served by the six CCC international charities represented there: China AIDS Orphans Fund (China), Orphan Sponsorship International (Bulgaria), Life of Hope (Guatemala), Children of Vietnam (Vietnam), and Partnership for Education of Children in Afghanistan (Afghanistan).

 

The carnival also featured foods from all the countries, including baklava, eggrolls, and benachin (an African rice dish), as well as a colorful store where kids could buy Afghani caps, Chinese purses, Guatemalan T-shirts, and much more.

 

Said 12-year-old Grace Gerloff, who was adopted from China as a toddler, “It was really fun to see all the things and do the stuff in the different booths. Plus, all the food was great!”

 

CCC plans to hold additional carnivals both in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and throughout the country.  If you are interested in helping host a carnival in your area, contact CCC at dina@childrenscultureconnection.org.

 

-Children's Culture Connection's First

Cross-Cultural Carnival-

Combining education with fun is CCC’s trademark, and our first-ever cross-cultural carnival will be no different. This upcoming Twin Cities area event will feature geography and language lessons, cultural artifacts and representatives, music, and food from six countries, as well as a fund-raising game at each country's station.

 

The games, which kids can play for $1 a turn, will benefit CCC’s affiliated charities in China, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Guatemala, and Russia. Plans are already under way to hold future carnivals in other U.S. cities.

 

Join us at this creative and fun-filled event, a kickoff to a whole new CCC program!

 

CCC ‘s

Children’s Cultural Carnival

Friday, September 12

5 p.m. to 8 p.m

King of Kings Lutheran Church

Woodbury, MN

For more information contact

Joanne Cryer 651-714-5128

 

 

 

 

 

 

-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-