Back in January, New York City's Youth Poet Laureate Ishmael Islam stopped in to visit us at our offices to be a guest on our Live Orange Broadcast, where we talked about how to use spoken word in the classroom. Recently, he came to visit at our FLY Program at the Harlem Polo Grounds, where he performed for the students and shared some inspiration.
Thank you Ish, for sharing your powerful words with our youth!
LitWorld Team Member Madison with the Kumasi Girls LitClub
Was a wonderful day here in hot hot hot Kumasi! Kumasi very West African, with the roadside shacks, dirt paths through small, poor neighborhoods (settled outside the walls of large estates), and wonderfully kind people walking everywhere. It is so wonderful to be here and see such a different side to this city, than I have ever seen before!
Madison in Action
LitWorld Team Member Denise with the Kumasi Girls LitClub
As the first month of the year comes to an end, I feel excited about the new developments and continued growth of LitClubs in the Philippines. It has been a positive start of the new year. On behalf of LitWorld, I am happy to welcome in new partnerships that have been forged over these past few weeks.
With Peace Corps Staff Ambet and Gerry, and Alex Monroe, former Peace Corps Volunteer
One of the exciting new partnerships that LitWorld has established is our new connection to the Peace Corps. With the help of an incredible change maker and former Peace Corps Volunteer Alex Monroe, LitWorld has been able to begin building with the Peace Corps office in the Philippines. We are preparing to integate the LitClubs program with the work their volunteers are going to be doing on the ground, and we are currently planning for the training session that will happen this March. I look forward to reporting how it will come about.
Ado and Stephanie from Project Pearls
This month, LitWorld has also secured another organization partner, Project Pearls. Founded by a Filipino-American mother and daughter team, Melissa Villa and Francesca Villa Mateo, Project Pearls is an organization that helps bring resources to young children in a slum village and garbage dumpsite community called Ulingan. They have brought their incredible passion to help the youth through Feeding Programs, Scholarship Programs, and a quarterly medical mission. I am looking forward to helping them begin their LitClubs program to empower their youth on site, and we've begun training last week. I am very much looking forward to visiting them when it comes time.
Training Real Life Foundation Volunteers and Project Pearls staff on LitClubs over a meal
Real Life Foundation, our first partner organization in Manila, is gearing up for LitClubs in the new year. Here we are above, joined with staff members of Project Pearls, training on the curriculum. Good food, good people, and a good mission ahead!
And of course, I've got my Girls LitClub at the Real Life Foundation every Saturday, where the girls are always welcoming, energetic, and excited to start their session. I love that they excitedly volunteer to read aloud all at once- their desire to have their voice heard is truly inspiring.
Thank you to all our new partners in the Philippines- let's continue to build and grow!
Ruby
This past weekend, I spent time with the women of Sarilaya, a women's organization whose cause is centered on female empowerment and healthy living. They support women who earn livelihood in the rural areas, and the women and families they support grow organic foods. They have children’s centers in these rural areas to help the men and women who are out working all day. I had the opportunity of training the incredible mothers and teachers on the LitClubs curriculum, and they are preparing to launch 9 new LitClubs at the start of the new year!
Armie and Riza, above, demonstrate and practice the art of the read-aloud
What I loved about this experience the most was the opportunity to hear the stories of Filipina women. I learned so much about their daily struggles, their victories, and their strength. Their lives are centered around being good mothers, providing for their children, and caring for the children in the centers. It was beautiful to laugh with them, to listen in to their stories of resilience, and to witness their determination to create better futures.
Michelle shows off her heart map
Pam Allyn, our Executive Director, helped me put together the agenda for the LitClubs training, and we made sure that the training would be inspiring and igniting. We wanted the women to feel the essence and spirit of our LitClubs, and sure enough, the women smiled brightly as we went through each exercise, as this training became a space for them to get re-inspired and refueled as they continued their work of caring for the young ones.
Below: The Seven Strengths Translated in Tagalog
Sharing our stories together was a priceless experience. The best part about it all was the fact that we all learned something valuable from each other. I was glad I had the opportunity to create an empowering, uplifting space for us all.
When the training ended, the women took off to their next destination in their Jeepney, a common mode of transportation in our country. (They love taking photos, can you tell?) :)
-Written by LitCorps Ambassador in the Philippines, Ruby Veridiano
A couple of weeks ago a magical thing happened at the LitWorld office. Don’t get me wrong, magical things always happen at the LitWorld office, but this experience was particularly moving for me. Across oceans and cultures and all types of obstacles, LitWorld was able to connect with the amazing Power Women Group of Kibera, Kenya. We have a Skype date with the Power Women every few weeks and it is the highlight of the day, week, and month for all of us. The Power Women live up to their name & are a truly powerful group of women. After being ostracized by their communities because of their HIV-positive status, the Power Women came together to support each other and work together to improve their living situations - they’re motto is “To pull together is to avoid being pulled apart.”
On this particular Friday - 9 am in NYC, 5 pm in Kibera - we’ve come together to share stories, songs and smiles and I am blown away by how close the women seem. It’s as if we are in the same room - although from their end they are experiencing inclement weather and we can hear what sounds like a torrential downpour beating down on the tin roof above them. We have some trouble hearing each other over the sound, but nothing can drown out the enormous smiles they have on their faces and the pure love that is radiating from each and every one of them. Because of the difficulty communicating we decide to sing songs - Dorothy leads us in singing “This Little Light of Mine” and the Power Women lead us in singing “When the Saints Go Marching On” - songs we all know and sing with ease and joy. It hits me as we sing that even though these women are so far away from me physically and live such completely different lives from my own, and even though we don’t speak the same language - we still have so much we want to share with each other and we have one very important thing in come - the eagerness to connect.
The rain finally settles down and YaYa is able to read aloud from a book that I had never heard of, but know I would have loved as a child. The book is called Frederick and it is about a little mouse who does not help the other little mice prepare for the coming winter months, or at least he does not help them in the more conventional way - by gathering grains and nuts. Rather, Frederick is gathering colors and words to share with his fellow mice when the food runs, so that he might warm their hearts and feed their spirits during the darkest days of winter. The book really resonated with me because I very much believe that every person has their own unique gifts to offer and even if they’re not conventional, they’re still essential.
After reading the book, we all went around and thought of one word that we would share with our children to help them get through hard times, to help them get through their own darkest days. No one woman said the same thing and every answer was beautiful. Some of the words we came up were: love, friends, bravery, hard work, school, hope, strength, family. Each answer was so personal and yet we all related - we were speaking the same language, even though we needed a translator to communicate - we were speaking the language of the heart, the language of stories.
This was an experience that for me truly defined what LitWorld is all about - sharing stories and moments and lessons; across language barriers, despite storms, using every possible technological means to connect. It was truly magical. And what I’m going to remember the most, what will brighten even my darkest day, are the dazzling and infectious smiles of the Power Women of Kibera, Kenya.
- Carey
Koidu town has finally got it’s own public library. Most of the books are donated and the quality of storybooks might not be overwhelming, but they have a great children’s section and the women I work with can only read children’s books anyway.
The only problem is that it cost money to become a member, and even though it is only around 3 dollars for a yearly membership a lot of people in Koidu never have a chance to pay the fee. Most families have to survive for a couple of dollars per day and the average income for teachers, tailors etc. are around 45 dollars per month.
Our tailors know how to read simple words and some of them can read basic children’s books as well, so I decided to let our project pay for the library membership fee so they have a place to study and practice reading and writing when we are going back to Denmark in a few months. It ended up being an exciting field trip and we will definitely go there a few more times to read before we leave.
Mariatu reads "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus"
On our way to the library. (from left: Mariatu, Naomi, Anni, Fatmata M., Fatamata K. and Hawa G.B.)
/Anni
For the past two weeks I’ve been working with a group of 14 young women in Sierra Leone. I’m leading a video workshop for the women to create their own documentary films and LitWorld girls club activities. Most of the women are illiterate so I have to be creative to explain and shape the exercises to them. The other day, I introduced them to LitWorld’s 7 strengths. The only word they know beforehand was hope. After explaining and exemplifying the words, I asked the women to discuss in their local language how the words relate to their own lives. The women worked in groups and when they had all shared their thoughts in the small groups I asked them to share in class. Because the discussion had taken place in their local language, I had no idea what they’ve been talking about, so it was an overwhelming surprise to learn the stories they had told each other.
10 years ago a bloody civil war came to an end in Sierra Leone, and it turned out that some of the women had shared war stories. Fanta explained that she was abducted by the rebels and had to live with them in the bush for a couple of months until she managed to flee and came back to her father. When I asked her, which of the 7 strengths she related her story to, she replied: “Even though I was abducted and lived with the rebels, I still belong to my family.”
/Anni
I was carrying years of anticipation and excitement with me when I took my first steps into the small courtyard and buildings shared by the Children of Kibera offices and Red Rose’s upper primary school. As soon as I walked into the space I was overwhelmed by the sense of joy, curiosity and love emanating from the girls gathered to meet the LitWorld team. The Red Rose Girls LitClub was waiting to embrace us all and I only wish I could have held onto the whole group forever.
The impact of the Girls Club at Red Rose is in every girl’s smile, every hug between friends, every thoughtful, reflective answer the girls gave to the questions we asked. The tragedy of the daily lives of these girls is real and all encompassing, the poverty, the dangers to their health and safety as women, the disease and pollution, and yet they sparkle. They radiate intelligence, ambition and hope in spite of the winding passageways running with rivers of sewage that each one deftly navigates to get from home to school and back again each day.
They feel themselves as leaders, as important members of their learning community, as girls on the brink of being women with a bright, beautiful future ahead. Hearing their dreams to become doctors and lawyers, their imaginings of fairies and magical monkeys that turn into princes, their questions about the world and their ideas to make it better, I know that they are being strengthened and protected and connected by the clubs in a way that means health and hope and happiness.
In Kisumu, every moment was full and there were so many people looking for our time, our care, our ear. And yet the LitClub girls were in many ways the same, beautifully bright, curious, funny, warm and open to our friendship, our love and our stories. I fell in love with them instantly and wish I had so many more hours to learn about every moment of their lives and every dream they have for their future.
Our work in Kisumu was expansive. We met with not only the girls but their principals, their teachers, their mothers. The time we spent with their mothers broke my heart and put it back together again. The group of mothers in Kisumu came to hear about what their daughters have been doing and learn about how they could be involved in their daughters’ learning. Some had never held a pen before, and were gently guided by those who sat nearby, but all were eager to be together. Coming together is so important for all of us as human beings. Feeling like we are a part of a group and working toward a common purpose, a goal that is good.
These mothers shared their worries about whether or not their children would be fed tomorrow, and they shared their stories about what makes their daughters special, and together in that room as the afternoon stretched toward evening they shared a promise to be strong for their daughters, protect their daughters and show their daughters how they could grow up to become the dreams they hold for themselves in their hearts.
I came home and can’t seem to shake the feeling of being separated from my dearest friends. I know this is only the beginning because I know the stories of the women and girls in Kibera and Kisumu, I know their smiles and their laughter and their secret hopes. And I will not forget. I will find ways to keep sharing, keep learning and keep discovering new ways to bring peace and hope and love and learning to each one. Each of my dear friends.
- Jen
As the LitWorld interns were sharing our reflections during our weekly staff meeting, it was clear that we all found moments during camp this week to recognize progress and growth. We are going to share some highlights that kept us smiling even through the more challenging moments:
Jessie: Today, Isaiah was upset about leaving us for lunch. He forgot his lunch and was worried that no one would want to sit with him. Once we entered the cafeteria, Jeffrey approached Isaiah, put his hand on Isaiah's shoulder, and very sweetly asked Isaiah to sit with him. I was so impressed by this kind gesture. It is so important to recognize when others are down and take initiative to cheer them up.
Emily C: Every morning we gather together as one group to sing songs and play a big game. I introduced "A Roosta Sha", a song that a British camp counselor taught me when I was ten. The kids love the song (especially the younger ones) and I can't help but laugh every time they shout out the silly words in British accents.
Cathleen: Today Wayde, who normally does not like to sit on the floor during read aloud, and chooses to put his head down instead, was one of the first sitting down and ready for the story. To add to my surprise, Wayne was sitting right next to him, the same Wayne he was having the most epic battle with last week. They left the room at the end of the day playing the “Tarzan the Monkey Man” hand game. In another little flicker of awesomeness, Henry and Ekatherine were thoroughly engrossed in a “Wonder Woman” book, which they took turns reading aloud together!
Nicolee: The highlights of my week were the positive changes in behavior I’ve noticed in the kids since the beginning of camp. I’ve seen the children acting kinder to one another, an attitude which seems to be catching on all over camp. Earlier this week, Jeffrey saw that Jaiden was upset because there were no more Spiderman books for him to read. Not only did Jeffrey find a Spiderman book for Jaiden, but he even suggested that they read together! I was thrilled to see this act of friendship reflected in Jaiden today when he saw Isaiah looking upset and offered his support by starting up a friendly conversation. Kindness is contagious at Story Power Camp!
My time with the boys and girls in Kenya was both heartbreaking and inspirational.
The challenges these children face are innumerable. Each and every day they deal with horrible, tough circumstances. These boys and girls have seen and experienced more in their ten years on earth than most people will in their entire lives, things that no one should have to deal with, let alone children.
In Kibera, almost every child we met had lost one or both parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is an unspoken rule that one doesn’t leave your home after dark because the alleyways are too dangerous. Often, the meal the students receive at the Red Rose School is their only meal of the day.
In Kisumu, on the bank of Lake Victoria, we heard story after story of girls who are forced to trade their bodies to the local fishermen in exchange for a bit of food on the way to school due to the of lack of food in their homes. In one school we visited, half of their students had been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and three girls had contracted the disease themselves.
Everywhere, girls take on an unequal burden of the household chores, cooking and cleaning for the entire family and spending hours fetching water.
Yet, the boys and girls in the LitClubs are still joyful. They dream. They think about the future. They have hope.
For many children in Kibera and Kisumu, their hardships become isolating and all encompassing. But the boys and girls in the LitClubs have an amazing ability to think about these challenges in a productive and positive way. They plan on become pilots or human rights lawyers or teachers. And even more strikingly, they see these professions not as a means of escape from their community, but an opportunity to return and make meaningful change so that other children will be able to grow up safer and happier and healthier than themselves.
I believe this is the greatest success of the LitClubs. Yes, LitWorld’s work revolves around literacy. Yes, the boys and girls who participate in the LitClubs are doing well and school and becoming leaders in the classroom. But they also have friendship, a sense of community, a time when they can leave behind their hardships and just be kids, hopes and goals for the future.
After spending two weeks with these lovely, amazing, thoughtful, beautiful children this is what resonates with me most. They are happy.
- Lauren G.
We just returned from a wonderful Wednesday at Story Power Camp! Our morning began outside in the beautiful weather with our usual greetings and call-and-response songs, which woke up any remaining sleepy campers. After an hour, we filed inside, exhausted after so much running and laughing during our favorite game, "Cat and Mouse."
Once inside our rooms, we enjoyed a snack and a read-aloud of “Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story” by Angela Shelf Medearis. This led to a group discussion about the different ways we all celebrate. From holidays to food, had no idea how many different cultures and traditions could be represented in just one small classroom!
Next, we made our very own personal "profiles" by tracing the profiles of our faces onto construction paper, then filling them in with what is special to us such as our birthdays, best friends, favorite movies, and favorite books! I certainly feel like I left camp today having learned something new about each and every camper.
-Nicolee
We had some very special guests today at camp! Pam and Bill came to meet the campers, and stayed to sing, play, read, and write with us. We showed them all the different kinds of games we’ve been playing over the month, and Pam shared a game she learned in Kenya called Zip, Zap, Zop.
After the games session, we went inside for a snack, and then met our second guest of the day, spiritchild. Spirit started out with a warm up—we each came up with a sound and then performed them, adding one voice in at a time, until we had a glorious melody. After this opening, he did incredible hip-hop workshop with our campers! We learned about the history of hip-hop, and then got to write and perform our own raps in pairs. Everyone worked well together—one person would come up with a line and then pass their notebook to their partner, who would continue the poem. It was amazing to see and hear the whole room buzzing with inspiration as the campers got their hip-hop sea legs.
It’s always exciting to have visitors at camp. Each guest brings with her or him special skills and ideas that inspire the students and staff both. The kids are so incredibly appreciative and genuinely enthused that people have taken time out of their lives to spend time at camp. As a staff, we couldn’t be more pleased—when visitors come and share their games, songs, and writing exercises, our own educational toolboxes expand. We love to take the things we learn from guests and add them to our daily plans!
-Emily H.
Kenya feels a lifetime away. As I sit in my grassy backyard, vast with space and air and growing food, it is difficult for me to remember that just a short time ago I was in Kibera. Kibera, where babies play on banks of sidewalks littered with garbage, where extended families share living space the size of my garden and where it is more common than not to question from where the next meal will come. Here fresh, cold, potable water runs freely from the hose. There the water is too often poison, causing diseases like typhoid and dysentery from the horrifically unsanitary conditions.
As usual, returning to the United States is both a relief and a challenge. While my friends and family understand that the work we do is important, it is difficult for me to share our progress to the extent where they can fully understand. The learning has occurred not only for the teachers and students in Kenya, but also for the LitWorld team. Each visit is an opportunity to witness and participate in the ground-up development of a student-centered, love-inspired learning environment. We are afforded the gift of participating in meaningful transformation.
On this visit I made deep observations and realizations. I observed the love passed between the Red Rose family and the LitWorld team, and I realized the commitment we have to each other. I observed the expansion of Red Rose and Children of Kibera, and I realized the potential of these two great organizations to positively and immensely impact the lives of so many Kiberan youth. I observed the inspiration and empowerment of adolescents, and I realized that giving voice to children will help them seek to solve their own problems and find their own personal justice.
Minutes out of Kenya and already I miss the smoky, dusty air. This place, this work, it embeds itself in your skin, in your mind, in your heart. It leaves you questioning how it is possible that people can be living such different lives just a plane ride away. It demands to know who is protecting the world’s children, who is instilling in them the values of hope and possibility. And it begs for more; we have just only begun.
- Annie
One of the most important aspects of the LitWorld Girls Clubs is the opportunity for girls to form deep friendships that provide the kind of support network that is crucial, even life-saving, to a girl growing up in a slum like Kibera. The school day does not provide the time for that; girls have many responsibilities at home, and the slum is too treacherous to be outside at night. What I noticed about all the girls I met who participate in LitWorld’s Girls Clubs was the strength of the relationships between the girls in the club and the love, support and compassion they showed toward one another. The facilitators of the girls clubs, most of whom are trained using internet technology and Skype, follow a curriculum developed by LitWorld that helps to create a safe, nurturing environment where the girls feel free to express themselves, and this creates closeness and cohesiveness among the members of the group.
While it is great that LitWorld has had the opportunity to visit the Girls Club in Kibera annually for the past 4 years, the Clubs we met with in Kisumu, and many others that the LitWorld team has yet to visit all over the world in places like Ghana, India, and Iraq, were begun as a result of the advocacy work of LitWorld; other literacy advocates and teachers reaching to the organization, expressing an interest in starting a club and becoming a facilitator, and receiving their training via Skype.
In places like Kibera and Kisumu, so many obstacles stand in the way of a girl’s education and the possibility of breaking the cycle of poverty. We were told how some of the fishermen on Lake Victoria near the school we visited in Kisumu lure girls away with food in the morning, taking advantage of their constant hunger. Three girls at the primary school there had contracted AIDS this way. Only some schools have “feeding programs” that provide for too many of the children the only meal they have in the day. Others are married at alarmingly young ages, as their families need the dowry and the added benefit of having one less mouth to feed.
Through my own participation with the girls, mothers, and teachers in the workshops that LitWorld led in Kibera and in Kisumu, I learned that literacy is not only reading and writing, but also listening and speaking. Every girl I met who was part of a LitWorld Girls Club showed maturity, polite assertiveness, pride and confidence in speaking that I have no doubt was cultivated through the literacy strengthening activities in which I saw the girls participate. These attributes are already helping them to advocate for themselves.
For example, a group of girls at Red Rose School in Kibera, home to the flagship Girls Club, approached us with a proposal they had been discussing. They had the idea to board at school because the small one room shacks where they lived, some with more than 5 family members, were an impossible place to read or do homework or study, especially the ones with a TV. They said they would do all the cooking and cleaning themselves since they do this at home anyway. They were very serious, and each had already spoken with their parents or caregivers about the idea. They were a group of 10-12 year olds, and they were LitWorld Girls Club girls.
I realize that LitWorld cannot address all of the problems that face girls and boys like the ones I met in Kibera and Kisumu. But through partnerships and collaborations, like the ones with Children of Kibera, Millennium Cities Initiative, Yonkers Partners in Education, Youth Action International in Liberia, Children’s Village, and others, LitWorld can continue to do what they do best... empower children along with their teachers and caregivers so they can find their own voices and develop the skills to advocate for themselves.
- Lauren B.
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It was great to see that the kids are getting excited about coming to camp, and it gets the day started on the right foot when they greet us with smiling faces. The opening circle was particularly lively this morning. We sang boom-chicka-boom in every possible rendition (underwater style, valley girl style, mouse style, etc.) then played an extra silly (and sweaty) game of superheroes and villains.
After reading about famous American inventors, we asked the campers to invent their own superhero masks. It was interesting to see how differently the younger group responded to this project. First of all, they were much more interested in using the more familiar medium of crayon than using the cut-outs. Secondly, they really wanted our help with the execution of their visions.
But most notably, the vast majority of them began making the masks upside down from the way we had intended, which led to some very unique looking superhero masks! Some of them actually looked quite menacing. This was such a fun activity, but we really made a mess!
-Jessie
In Kisumu, LitWord not only had a workshop that brought the girls from four different Girls Clubs there together for the first time, but also had a workshop for their mothers/grandmothers/caregivers (so many of the girls are being raised by grandparents or other family or friends because they are orphaned by the incredibly pervasive epidemic of HIV.) After hearing the children's book The Peace Book by Todd Parr, they were asked what Peace meant to them. The answer that reverberated throughout the room was that Peace was when they could successfully provide the things they so much wanted to give their children... such as a meal at the end of their long day, or the fees they needed so their children could remain in school (I learned that even free primary education newly introduced in Kenya is not entirely free, and the small amount required from each student is what is used to pay the teachers). For these women, every day is a struggle for peace.
- Lauren B
Our intern Erik has created this beautiful poster for our student documentary film screening on August 4th at 7pm. I just printed 10 posters to bring to the workshop tomorrow. I'm excited to show it to the young filmmakers and I hope it will help them feel special and inspired to continue their hard work on their films.
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- Anni
After a morning of “Superhero & Villian” (our week’s adaptation of “Cat & Mouse”) we had a day of real-life heroes. Read Aloud was short stories on three African-American heroes and our writing project was a brainstorm of what qualities a real-life hero possesses. The highlight of the day was making masks with qualities the campers felt a hero had. Many of the campers took this incentive to glue qualities onto their masks that described themselves and what made them a hero. Who a combination of art supplies, coloring materials, and magazine words and letters, the campers really loved putting together a mask version of their heroic selves.
-Cathleen
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