Newark students help Pakistani, Afghan kids
Students in Pakistan and Afghanistan will be getting school supplies because of the kindness of some students in Newark.
Kids at the Newark Center for Creative Learning were inspired by the book Three Cups of Tea, and collected pennies over the last couple of months. Eighth-grader Sarah Mattes says they raised $1,070.
Educational director Marilyn Magnani says they wanted the kids to compare their lives to those who don't have what they have.
The kids raised enough to buy pencils and notebooks for 50 children for a whole year, with some left over to go toward teachers' salaries.
Listen to report with Yahoo! Media Player (Firefox, Safari PC, Chrome)
Newark school collects "Pennies for Peace"
Students at the Newark Center for Creative Learning collected funds in a month-long "Pennies for Peace" campaign to broaden their cultural horizons and share in a global family dedicated to peace.
"Pennies for Peace" supports the efforts of Greg Mortenson to build schools and provide educational materials in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson, founder of the Central Asian Institute, detailed his work in " Three Cups of Tea", published in 2007.
A penny doesn't buy much in Newark, but in the villages Mortenson discovered while lost on a mountain-climbing expedition in Pakistan, a penny buys a pencil and starts an education. Children in more than 400 mountain villages, where terrorist groups recruit the illiterate and teach only violence, are waiting for a school to transform their lives.
Students at NCCL collected pennies, spare change and some larger donations in jars placed throughout the school. Some parents also placed jars in their workplaces.
Seventh and eighth grade students asked the local businesses where they are apprentices to place collection jars in their stores.
The school's curriculum in social studies, math, writing, geography and civics also centers around the people, culture and daily challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In grades one and two, students heard a children's version of " Three Cups of Tea" called "Listen to the Wind," and watched videos about food, schools and geography in Central Asia as well as children playing and eating in their villages.
Inspired by what they learned, the kids wove a rug called a "kalimar" and tried eating a rice dish with their fingers as children do in Afghanistan. They also created a collage comparing how they dress in the United States with how children dress in Afghanistan and tried on clothing of that region made by NCCL teachers.
Students in grades three and four participated in an activity called "precious pencil," in which each student and teacher was given one pencil for a week. If they lost it, they would have to buy a new one for 10 cents. "They learned to be very careful with their pencils," Marilyn Magnani, NCCL educational director, said. "By the end of the week, everyone still had their original pencils."
Fifth and sixth graders learned that the literacy rate in Afghanistan and Pakistan is 13 percent and calculated how many NCCL students would be able to read if only 13 percent of them were literate.
The project at NCCL ran from Feb. 9 to March 6 when the jars were collected in the school and the communities throughout New Castle County.
