V.I.P. - The Legacy

We are thrilled to announce that due to the great success of the Virtual Information Project this year, we will be returning to Nairobi, Kenya at the end of June to expand the project! We are excited to bring three of our colleagues along with us this summer on what we are calling V.I.P. - The Legacy. They will learn from the Kilimani School and volunteer their time and offer their talents to the project. The team includes JoAnn Brown, 4^th grade teacher; Ellen McCarthy, K-5 Science teacher; and Kevin Brown, technology consultant.

JoAnn will head-up a project entitled “Show Me Your Africa/Show Me Your America/ Show Me Inclusion”, which will engage our 4^th grade students and the Kilimani students in the process of documenting their home and school lives through photographs using disposable digital cameras and journal writing. This will allow students to document, using digital media and narrative writing, what it is to live in very different urban settings and to be a part of an inclusive community.

Kevin will spearhead technology training for the fourth and fifth grade teachers at the Kilimani School. Last year, we were able to send one teacher through a 6-week intensive IT training to learn the basics of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. This teacher then brought this knowledge back to her grade-level colleagues and thus began the Kilimani to Henderson virtual exchange. Kevin will build on this technology training and support these teachers in how to make the technology accessible at the student level. He will also trouble-shoot issues of using a limited number of computers with a large number of students.

Ellen will lead an investigation of rural Maasai life in the Maasai Mara and Amboseli National Parks to enhance both schools’ science comparative study of temperate and tropical ecosystems, emphasizing specifically in how changes in the environment have caused some plants and animals to die or move to new locations (i.e. wildebeest migration) and how humans (i.e. the Maasai people) are interacting with the environment to ensure a species’ survival.

We are also thrilled to announce that this team will pave the way for a much larger team of students, parents, and teachers who will travel to Kenya in the summer of 2012 to meet their penpals and participate in an educational safari.

This trip is made possible in part by the GENEROUS grant funding of the Fund for Teachers. JoAnn and Ellen proposed their project for FFT funding and they have been awarded a scholarship to carry it to fruition. Dottie Engler, Boston's FFT site coordinator recently said that, "Funding the work of the Virtual Information Project may be the best $20,000 FFT has ever invested!"

We are working hard to put together all of the final details in the planning and preparation process and are knee deep in fundraising. We recently had our biggest fundraising and school community involvement event of the year - "International Festival", where families hosted tables with food and cultural artifacts representing their heritage. We had multiple events to support our V.I.P. partnership at the Festival, including a silent auction of East African artifacts.

However, the most exciting part of the evening was that we had a true celebrity in our midst! Teacher Jane Ramu, specialist teacher of deaf/blind children from the Kilimani Integrated Primary School, was with us at the Henderson Inclusion School IN THE FLESH for our International Festival! She even addressed the hundreds of parents and students in attendance and made a speech about the V.I.P. partnership on behalf of the Kilimani School. The story of how Jane came into our lives and thus to our school is truly amazing and once again resonates with divine intervention. We will keep you in suspense and share it all in our next post! :-) For now, enjoy the great photo of Jane and the 2011 V.I.P. - The Legacy team (Terri, Danielle, Jane, JoAnn, Ellen).