The Tours Goes to Stanford!

On November 3, I was able to attend one of many stops on Vance Walstra's bike outreach tour and help with a tabling event. I was really excited about this particular opportunity because 1. it was at Stanford 2. all of the students were attending because they were interested in volunteering, interning or studying abroad. It was our perfect audience! 3. I've spent a lot of hours convincing people at at Universities along the West Coast to host Vance and it was wonderful to get the chance to participate.

I've already received an email from an interested student who is seeking a long tern volunteer position when she graduates this year.

Most colleges and universities offer fairs of this nature and it would be wonderful if various former volunteers living near these institutions could represent Omprakash and encourage students to get on board the Omprakash train!

Planning an Outreach Tour

I have been back in the United States for months now and I really miss volunteering in Peru, but I realized that I don't have to be out of the country to work toward positive social change and global education.
So....
I decided to join forces with fellow Omprakash volunteer Vance Walstra to plan an outreach tour targeting universities and colleges between Seattle and San Francisco.  Vance will share information about Omprakash with college students in hopes of raising money for the volunteer-grant program and raising awareness about the overall network.
And, he is doing it all by bike!  He began the tour in late September.
Meanwhile, I've been calling, emailing and pleading with various departments and staff members to get him booked at 16 colleges and universities!!!

Reflection

I’ve spent the last 8 months working to develop a small school in Cusco, Peru.  Now, I’m back in the United States trying to readjust to my former life. My experience in Peru has given me  new focus and direction. While I have felt passion and dedication towards education in the past, I have never felt the sense of urgency and  purpose like I did during my time at Helping Hands.  The world seems smaller to me now.  

I made the following observations:
The problems that students face in Peru are so similar to those that students face in the United States and in many countries around the world.  Adequate access to water, healthy food and education seem to be a common theme. These problems may present themselves differently from country to country but share common roots and can benefit from common solutions.  I am eager to share what I learned in Peru with schools in my community hoping to demonstrate connections, build relationships and brainstorm ideas for solutions.

It seems to me that the story is all too often about budget cuts and lack of funding for school supplies.  Students world wide are facing health problems as a result of malnutrition or poor nutrition.  There are simple steps any school can take to work towards solving these problems. For example, incorporating the use of recycled materials to grow food or for classroom use is a good idea for everyone.  Different schools may have different motiviations to incorporate trash into their daily operations but the end results are the same. San Gabriel Kindergarten in Cusco, Peru recycles because it is one of the only ways to provide financially disadvantaged students with supplies/tools for learning whereas a school in the USA might recycle because they are trying to teach students to be conscious of trash and waste.  Either way, trash can provide free materials and kids can learn to reuse and recycle garbage in turn helping the environment.  Each group can learn from the other.

My work in Peru was just the beginning for me and the experience provided the inspiration I needed to continue in the United States and abroad.   

Telluride Mountain School Lends 23 Pairs of Helpful Hands

Helping Hands welcomes 19 students and 4 teachers from Telluride, Colorado. The group is working hard to help us rebuild our terraces, transplant our sprouts, plant new seeds, create a bottle cap mural, write and perform a puppet show and spend one on one time with our students reading and playing.  They are doing an incredible job!  Muchas Gracias! You guys are AWESOME!

Completed Trash Mural!  Awesome Work!

TMS... some of us are seeds reaching for the sun

Ladies with a mission to ward off hungry insects seeking to destroy our crops

Team Terrace 

Weeding the garden

Big Brother/Sister Day

One on one reading in the grass

http://www.telluridemtnschool.org/

Waste Workshop

Omprakash volunteers Reshma Kulkarni and Lacey Worel are working towards similar goals.  They both are developing programs to teach children about different types of trash, composting and recycling.  

Lacey developed a series of lessons that incorporate the use of trash, gardening and composting across multiple subjects areas including math, science and art.  

Reshma created a 1 day environmental awareness camp that teaches children about composting/growing food and sorting dry and wet waste. 

As a result of meeting Lacey through Omprakash, Reshma visited Helping Hands and held their first "Trash Workshop".  The children  were encouraged to sort trash into groups and ended the day knowing the difference between organic and inorganic waste.  This experience will help prepare the children for future lessons and garden/compost projects.

The Omprakash Network enables like minded people to collaborate towards common goals by allowing volunteers to share profiles, stories, media and resources.  

Thanks so much Reshma!!  Thanks Omprakash!

http://www.omprakash.org/home

Reshma Kulkarni

Links to Lessons!

I have been working to create a curriculum for preschool and kindergarten students.  I am providing links to each subject area.  The lessons are written in Spanish and English and include key phrases/directions in Espanol for use in the classroom.  The lessons are written to use minimal, inexpensive or recycled materials.  Lessons also relate learning goals to the school's greenhouse and garden.  Many lessons are reusable.  

Hard Copies Coming Soon!

*These are in draft form because I am still in the process of editing!  Please forgive any typos etc. especially in Spanish!

Reading and Writing

Math

Science

Art and Trash Art

Fine Motor Activities

Dramatic Play Activities

Outdoor Play

Hygiene, Nutrition/Cooking

Teaching English

Letter of the Day

Number of the Day

Transitions

Classroom Rules

Uniforms Donated by Fairplay!

Turning Trash into Eggs

San Gabriel Students transform old egg cartons into beautiful eggs that they loved hunting for!

Science Lesson: Planting Seeds

Classroom Mural

Our classroom learning mural is becoming a beautiful reality!  A print rich environment is a great way to learn! Thanks to Minty, Jessica, Sanna and Adrian.

Entrepreneurs and Crafty People: Want to Volunteer?

In addition to our volunteer positions working in the classroom, gardening and building, we would like to develop our trash collecting/fundraising plan.

We need an enthusiastic person who would like to help turn milk-cartons into wallets, plarn (plastic bags) into handbags and sell these items to raise money for San Gabriel Kindergarten.

How will this work?

Local businesses save plastic bags, milk, juice and wine cartons that you will collect and transform into crafts to be sold as a fundraiser.

Your job:

Collect the materials, design sample products and work to train community members to produce more.

Sell these items:

Online?  Locally?  Internationally?

The sky is the limit with this project.  Think outside the juice box.  What else can we make out of trash (help the environment) and sell (fundraise for San Gabriel)?  Can we work with schools in the United States to help make and sell these products... building relationships and making connections with schools across the world?  

Fairplay Presents "Kate's Story"

A short film written, directed and produced by Adele Thomas and Carlo Ricci aimed at taking you through the experience of a Fairplay volunteer at Helping Hands.

Wonderful work amigos!  Thank you so much.

A Glance at Big Brother/Sister Day

Be a part of Big Brother/Big Sister Day at San Gabriel Kindergarten.  Each Friday brings a wonderful opportunity for volunteers to bond with individual students through play and laughter.  Thanks to all of the volunteers who make this possible. 

First Ever Helping Hands Puppet Show

A group of 8 volunteers sent to us from Fairplay created this wonderful puppet theater for our school and put on the first ever Helping Hands production of Los 3 Chanchitos (The Three Little Pigs)  They did a wonderful job and our students were so impressed. Thanks so much for all of your hard work.

Networking with Garden City Collegiate

Helping Hands is lucky to have friends all over the world.  A team of Canadian students supervised by Mr. Yeung, Ms. Thompson and Ms. Pasternak have put together a $1000 grant proposal offered by ManACE to help our school expand our ecological projects.  They created a short video to help spread the message.  Thanks Garden City and good luck!

Garden City Collegiate 

Changing Lives

Volunteer Amy Fenn has been working one on one with preschooler Fiorella.  Fiorella came to San Gabriel lacking speech and was extremely timid, even terrified of staying at school without her mother.  It was very difficult to determine what level she was opperating cognativly, developmentally and socially. Because of the close attention given to Fiorella by Amy, she is doing wonderfully.  She now enjoys herself while at school, is able to stay full days and is using one to two word phrases.  Amy is also teaching her sign language and Fiorella is able to express herself.   We are all amazed at the progress that has been made in such a short time.  This is a wonderful example of how one volunteer can change lives.  Thanks Amy!  You are amazing and so is Fiorella!

Meet Omprakash

They facilitate communication, collaboration, and mutual learning within a diverse international network of social actors.  Their free database of global Partners can empower you to volunteer abroad, advocate at home, or enrich your school’s academic curriculum and service-learning programs.  They offer grants to help qualified applicants build lasting relationships with their outstanding Partners (one of which is Helping Hands), and they enable these Partners to receive tax-deductible donations from their dedicated supporters.  

If you are volunteering with Helping Hands, we strongly encourage you to also join the Omprakash network and share your experience by creating a volunteer profile. You can post photos, stories and classroom resources.  http://www.omprakash.org/

Completed Classrooms

Kindergarten

Volunteer Constance directs the class.  Notice the fresh paint, organized shelves full of supplies (thanks donators) and happy kids!  

 Preschool

Volunteers Sares and Amy work with Teacher Andrea in the newly plastered and painted 3-4 year old classroom.  

We now have a battery powered cd player to supplement English lessons and play music for the kids!

 One on One

Volunteer Amy spends one on one time with a preschooler.  Having individual support is a wonderful byproduct of access to eager and motivated volunteers.  Thanks so much to all of our helping hands.

Photo Time

Preschools pose for the camera!  After asking them to smile but not getting my accent just right, I decided to go the literal route and say "show me your teeth" at which point they did!

So adorable.

School Supplies Recently Purchased With you Support

Bean/Seed Box

This box of beans can be used for various educational activities.   Students can sort the legumes based on size, texture, color, shape, food preference, name etc. They can also use them for counting, adding and subtracting practice.

 Lupas: Magnifying Glasses

Students can use these to examine things in their environment including the box of beans.  Children can interact with the world on a closer level and understand that things are more than they appear to the eye.  Science, art, math... it all can be included.

Sorting Objects

With the use of recycled egg cartons or coffee cans, students can sort various objects into categories.  For example, they can place all pink buttons in one section, separate the standing army men from the squatters, sea animals from farm animals etc.  And, they feel like they are playing!

Paint, Foam Letters/Numbers and Popsicle Sticks












Letters/numbers have many uses including letter/number identification.  Paint and popsicle sticks are great to incorporate into art lessons and decorating trash.

Successful Silent Auction!

Wow!  The numbers are still rolling in but last weekend marked the first ever Helping Hands Silent Auction!  Cheryl and Nick Willard and their friends and family members raised nearly $8,000 for our project.  We will use the money to fund our nutrition program.  The biggest problem that our students are facing is malnutrition and this cash will help to eliminate this!  We will provide breakfast and lunch to our students everyday helping their brains to develop and their tummies to be full!

                                                             GRACIAS CANADA!

Early Potato Harvest

                                    

We had to harvest the potatoes early because they were attacked by insects.  Now we have a bite size variety!  Thanks Robbie, Adrian and Linda.

Feeding the Ninos

We are working hard to complete our kitchen in order to provide breakfast and lunch for our 24 students.  We will supply the children with balanced and healthy meals to fight malnutrition.  Our partner, fairplay-peru.org/,  has donated a 3 burner stove to help us achieve our goal. Thank you! We will use food grown in our garden, food collected from the community and food purchased with your support to prepare the meals.

Thanks so so many helping hands for their hard work building the kitchen!

Recent Purchases

Thanks so much to everyone who has donated!  Here is a list of items that your money has helped us to provide:

File folders
Foam letters and numbers
Blocks- shapes and colors
Craft Paint
Interior wall paint
Objects for sorting and counting
Cd player
Batteries
Music aimed at teaching English
Hand Saw
Concrete
Wood
Nails
Magnifying glasses
Metal fencing- fabrication and installation
Ingredients for natural insecticide
Spray bottles
Breakfast for students
Grains, beans and seeds for sorting and counting
*Water tank
*Adobe bricks
*Wood

Fighting Insects with Natural Solutions

At San Gabriel Kindergarten, we are learning to grow food for our school's lunch program.  We have three potato fields that were recently attacted by some type of insect.  Because we are striving to be a sustainable and ecological school, we do not want to use pesticide on our plants.  We are going to try this natural alternative and see if it works.

Chopped onion and garlic for the mixture

Garlic Spray:

Here is the recipe for a garlic spray that fights slugs too. Slugs must not like eating Italian. To make this smelly spray, use the following list of ingredients:

1 garlic bulb

1 quart of water

1 medium onion

1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon liquid dish soap

Crush the garlic, mincing it fine. Add finely chopped onion to the mixture, while adding the rest of the ingredients except the soap. Wait an hour before adding the soap to the mixture. The spicy ingredients must sort of stew or steep, almost like tea. After an hour, add the soap and your non-toxic spray is ready to use! This can be stored in the fridge for a week.  http://www.essortment.com/homemade-organic-pesticide-54004.html

Our first batch of garlic juice!

New Paint!

Great job to all of the hardworking volunteers who prepped and painted the inside of the school!  It looks wonderful.

Volunteer House

We now have a volunteer apartment located in San Sebastion near the school.

3 bedrooms

6 beds

1 bathroom

dining room

kitchen

terrace

*hot water

*internet coming soon

Omprakash Grant Recipient!

Lacey Worel

2011: Helping Hands, Peru

Lacey Worel grew up in Washington State where her family had a large garden and a small farm. She studied Elementary Education at California State University San Bernardino with a concentration in Psychology. As a college student, she worked with various environmental organizations including the National Parks Conservation Association in Joshua Tree California. After graduating, she worked as a middle school teacher and began her graduate work in the field of Special Education.

For the past 6 months, she has been working in Cusco, Peru with Helping Hands to develop a kindergarten that serves disadvantaged children and focuses on sustainability and nutrition: growing vegetables for the school’s lunch program and using recycled items whenever possible. She is currently writing a daily curriculum for the school that incorporates agriculture, hygiene, recycling and age appropriate learning goals. In addition to overseeing and initiating the development of the school’s garden, she is working as a volunteer coordinator, fundraising and working to implement sustainable building practices such as incorporating a solar oven and harvesting rainwater.

Receiving the Omprakash grant will allow her to continue to support and develop this ecological school by extending her time in Peru. Upon returning to the United States, she will deliver multi media presentations to various schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Washington State. These presentations will include short videos that she has produced, nutritional research based in Cusco that can be compared to the eating habits of students elsewhere, background information on Omprakash and Helping Hands, fundraising ideas and templates for sustainable school projects such as composting or using recycled cardboard instead of paper. In addition to these presentations, she will share her preschool curriculum and greenhouse template with other projects and seek out new partners in Baja Mexico. She will also continue to support and prepare Helping Hands volunteers and work to update the organization’s website.

Partnering with Fairplay

Helping Hands has partnered with a local Spanish School.  Fairplay is an NGO that hires and trains local single mothers to teach Spanish and Salsa lessons and provides volunteers free of charge to local projects.

Fairplay is supporting Helping Hands in many ways including scheduling and providing volunteers, materials and school supplies.  

http://www.fairplay-peru.org/

Recent Donations!

Thank you so much for your donations!  We will be purchasing several kitchen appliances, building materials and food for our up coming lunch program!

Personal:
The Poppert Family
The Colbert Family
Jeremiah Konkle
Virginia Hughes
Terry and Edlina Maples
Giacomo Gallina
Edvise Penocelli
Paolo Masiero
Elvira, Elena, Alberto and Gabriel, Anne and Edvise
Anonymous Donor- you know who you are!
Arianna Paine
Bridget Rauch

Organizations:
Omprakash
Fairplay

*if you donated recently and don't see your name, please let me know!

First Transplant

We transplanted the first of our lettuce and tomatoes from the greenhouse to the outisde gardnen.  We are well on our way to providing our studnets with fresh vegetables this school year. Great job to Lauren who has taken over as our lead gardener!  And Francesca, your enthusiasm is amazing.

Fundraising Push

As the Peruvian summer draws to an end, we are all working very hard to complete our most recent goals.  We have a crew of volunteers working with one of our student's fathers to put the finishing touches on the interior walls of the school, we are completing the construction of our  kitchen, developing a balanced meal plan that will incorporate the use of our fresh vegetables and donated food, fostering local partnerships that will help to provide a sustainable number of willing volunteers, continuing to develop our greenhouse and garden, collecting research and preparing a gardening pamphlet for the use of future volunteers, writing and translating an entire year's curriculum, developing an educational mural for the interior walls of both of our classrooms and collaborating with schools in other parts of the world to develop new aspects of our project such as potentially installing solar panels and creating a bottle cap mural on the exterior walls of our school.

We need to purchase several items before the start of the school year and are asking for your help.  If people donate just $10 or $15 each, we will have enough money to purchase the following items:

Latex paint for the interior walls of the school
School Supplies
Grains (quinoa and brown rice)
Files and file cabinet
Bins for storing and organizing the year's schools supplies
Tree seedlings to prevent soil erosion
Dowels or stakes to support our tomato plants
Two burner stove
Small refrigerator

Thank you so much in advance for helping our ecological school become a successful institute.

Lacey Worel
Volunteer Coordinator
Curriculum Development

Plarn! It's All the Rage!

Jasmine of Alaska helps us figure out how to knit using plarn: yarn made from recycled plastic bags.  We are designing coin purses and bags that will be sold to earn money for the school! Stay tuned for photos of finished products!  Thanks Jasmine!

Check Up: Helping Hands Pharmacy

Helping Hands and Omprakash have worked to develop a local pharmacy that will help to provide medical support for our students.
Each student will see a doctor and have a physical prior to the start of the next school year to identify areas of need.  Hopefully, we will see great improvements as a result of better nutrition, hygiene and medical care.

Interior Walls

For the past two weeks, volunteers have been working with founder Mario to finish the interior walls of the school.  This consists of hauling cement to the school, mixing it, throwing it on the walls and then smoothing it out.  Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed.   The newly smoothed walls will be perfect for an educational mural that will demonstrate learning concepts and agricultural principles.