An Open Letter to Parents and Students of Huey Deng High School, Yilan, Taiwan September 13, 2013 Dear Parents and Students, I am working with Shih-Pei Chang, the Director of Center for International Studies, to offer an exciting trip for students at Huey Deng High School. We will spend two weeks outside Kathmandu, Nepal involved in a community service project and learning about the culture and people of Nepal. I am currently a professor at Columbia University in New York City, USA. Before that I was a high school geography teacher in the US and Malawi so I have experience working with young people. I have led 6 Habitat for Humanity Global Village teams to sites in Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya and LeSotho. This overseas service-learning project enables students from Huey Deng to work with Habitat for Humanity to help build houses for people in need in Nepal. Nearly 90 percent of Nepal’s 22 million people live in the rural plains and mountain areas, primarily as subsistence farmers. Forty-five percent of Nepal’s population lives below the poverty line, with one infant in every 10 dying before the age of five. A lack of employment and poverty has forced many people from rural areas to migrate to cities. This has resulted in a shortage of adequate housing in cities, crowded living spaces, and the growth of substandard housing. For those of us with a solid house, we sometimes forget how important having a safe and secure home can be for the well-being and happiness of a family. I have been working with Habitat for 14 years and have beautiful pictures of families celebrating their new home. Habitat for Humanity is a service organization that relies on volunteers. Habitat does not merely give out houses. They offer no-interest loans to make basic housing affordable. They also rely on “sweat equity” – families who receive houses help build their home and those for others – and the work of volunteers like your sons and daughters. Your child will help build houses side-by-side with families in the community. They will meet the family whose house they build. They will be able to see the difference they are making in the life of a family in Nepal. In Nepal, we will stay at a comfortable hotel in Kavre. Each student will stay in a double-room with a friend. In the morning, we will travel to the worksite where we will learn simple building skills, move materials, and interact with people from the community. The houses in Nepal use new bamboo technologies. No one is expected to have any building skills before coming to Nepal. The experienced builders who lead the project will teach us what we need to know and partner us with volunteers who have more experience. We will have lunch at the worksite and then travel back to the hotel around 5. Students will have free-time until after dinner. Following dinner we will have a short team meeting to debrief the day and share our experiences. In addition to the important work of the trip – using our time to give to people in need, we will also take time to learn more about the culture and people of Nepal. We will organize short excursions during the week to visit a temple, maybe a school, a market and compare life in Taiwan and Nepal. Over the weekend, we will explore sites in the local community. We are still determining those sites. We will spend the last day seeing sites in Kathmandu before returning to Taipei. This community service project is a wonderful opportunity for your child to travel, to see how others live in the world, and to help improve the lives of people in need in Nepal. Sincerely, Sandra Schmidt, PhD Teachers College, Columbia University 525 W. 120th St. 420B Zankel Hall New York, NY 10027
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 06:53:51 +0000
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