SCA Corporation is an international paper products corporation with a long-standing commitment to sustainability, and they have presented us with a generous grant to implement a multi-faceted project called LESSONS IN SUSTAINABILITY: LEARN, PRACTICE, TEACH & SHARE.
Yesterday, Channel 6 News captured the Pen Pal & Popcorn Club as they planted organic greens. This is the first part of our learning about eating sustainably. Watch the news clip here:
http://mediacenter.tveyes.com/downloadgateway.aspx?UserID=211039&MDID=2880929&MDSeed=2057&Type=Media
In addition to growing and harvesting organic greens, RMS students will see an assembly by Franklin Institute on Nutrition and the Human Body, dissect our lunch trash to measure what we're throwing away, read THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA by Michael Pollan, SEEDFOLKS by Paul Fleischman, and help our pen pals in Bupala begin an organic garden through a project called 1,000 GARDENS IN AFRICA.
Throughout it all, we will continue to communicate with our pen pals, sharing our expanding knowledge about how to live greener and cleaner lives. Thank you, SCA, for allowing us to develop and exchange information with our friends in Uganda.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
An Opportunity of a Lifetime!
We have very exciting plans for this summer and want you to
get involved! This summer we will be working on the ground in Uganda in
collaboration with 1000 Gardens to build a garden at Buppala and we would like
to invite YOU to be part of this experience! We are looking for as many hands
as possible to be on the ground working alongside Ugandans to create this
garden. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create lasting change in an
impoverished village in Uganda.
The 1000 Gardens in Africa is a project of Slow Foods
International and works to create food security in African countries. They have
built tons of gardens all over Africa and we will be working with their field
technician to build our very own garden at Buppala! Watch this video to learn more about the 1000 Gardens project or visit their website at: http://www.slowfoodfoundation.com/athousandgardens
This garden will encourage students to go to and stay in
school and will also greatly improve their school performance. In addition, it
will help the village become self-sufficient as they will be able to sell their
produce. All these factors will greatly improve their quality of life.
The trip will be led by Joanne Trangle of Kuchanga Travel.
Kuchanga Travel is a foundation that organizes volunteer opportunities and
adventure throughout several African countries. You can visit their website
here: http://www.kuchangatravel.com/
Join us on this incredible journey to meet our friends at
Buppala and help them build a better future! Come see how people really live in
Africa and how we can make a difference and improve their quality of life.
For more info please contact: jodi.sabra@rtsd.org
Sunday, January 19, 2014
YEAR OF THE GARDEN!
1,000 GARDENS IN AFRICA is an initiative of Slow Foods International, and they have agreed to partner with us to build
a garden at our sister school!
Slow Foods is
an international organization committed to teaching people the value of eating
locally and preserving the integrity of the land and culture where food is
grown. Slow Foods is dedicated to:
·
Protecting
the environment
·
Defending food biodiversity through sustainable
agriculture
·
Supporting small-scale food producers and
valuing their traditional knowledge.
Our goal is to
help Buppala School sustain their own lunch program through organic
gardening. To that end, we are working
with 1,000 Gardens in Africa to build a garden on the school property. Last week, our friend, guide and mentor,
Joanne Trangle, travelled to Buppala School with our engineer, Moses Bagonza,
to plan the implementation of the garden this summer. They delivered some gardening tools to
demonstrate our good intentions and to help the villagers begin preparing the
land for cultivation. The school has
dedicated four acres for this garden.
Anyone who is
interested in assisting with this effort is invited to join us in building the
garden in Uganda. It will be two weeks
of working in the village alongside the community to initiate a life-changing
sustainable garden project. If you are interested, contact
Jodi Sabra, or visit
Kuchanga Travel for details. We are leaving as soon as school is over in
June.
We will be working hard this spring raising money to continue
lunches for almost 1000 children now, and also will be fundraising for the
garden. If you or anyone you know has any great ideas for fundraising, please
let us know. We would love for as many
people to be involved as possible!
Check it out! It is a really cool movement! We will be utilizing these resources to help
the students at Radnor and Buppala Schools gain a better understanding of where their food comes
from and how it is grown. It will also be interesting for them to see how
people live and grow food in Uganda.
Monday, January 13, 2014
WE GOT MAIL!
Happy New Year! We are off to a
great start this year with The Pen Pal Project and are thrilled about the new
letters we just got all the way from Uganda! The RMS students got to learn a
little more about their pen pals, such as what they do before they go to
school, what sports and activities they like to do, what their favorite
subjects are, and who their favorite teachers are. It has been interesting and
exciting for the Radnor students to see what they have in common with their pen
pals and where their lives differ.
We are embarking on a new project in pen pal club in which we are responding to prompts in the book, List Yourself. This book has prompts in the form of lists, such as “list everything you do in the morning between waking up and walking out your door”, “list all the things you would do if you were president”, and “list the things that are usually in your garbage”. We will then send these same prompts to our friends at Bupala and see how their lists compare to ours.
Please stay updated on what we are up to by following this blog (scroll down on the right hand side of the blog) and liking our page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UgandaPenPalClub). We have a lot of exciting projects coming up! Thank you for your continuous interest and support!
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