Alaskan Students Travel to Peru to Serve, Explore, and Inspire
Help me give my students a school exchange and service project with a school in Peru, and share that experience to inspire other students in our rural Alaska community.
My students have chosen to be in an elective Spanish Club at our school in Alaska. Our mission is to provide these ambitious students with opportunities to serve and learn about other cultures through travel and bring back those experiences to share with others in our community. They work hard all year to raise money for a trip and a service project in a Spanish speaking country. We focus on a service project in each place we travel, as well as language practice and cultural learning. Upon our return, we share our experiences to inspire other students and families in rural Alaska.
My students are from a remote rural part of Alaska with a high percentage of Alaska Native students, where there is high-poverty and un-employment.
Many of them come from families that don't have resources to travel, and we strive to give them that opportunity. They work hard to raise their own money, but in our small community, often we need outside help to meet their goal.
Watching their eyes open wide as they explore the world around them is a gift that you can give these kids. It will change the way they see Alaska, their home, and
My Project
My students will forever remember this experience of collecting educational materials and visiting a girls' school in Cuzco, Peru to deliver them and have a cultural exchange with Peruvian Students. The school we are partnering with has worked for more than twenty-five years to educate the families, and the Andean community, regarding the value of their girl children and the many abilities they will develop if given the opportunity for a future out of poverty and economic dependence.
Through the education at this school, these girls will instill in their own future children the knowledge that there are choices other than poverty and dependency on a father, brother or husband for survival.
They strive to prepare these girls with skills that will enable them to defend themselves economically when they become adults. They aim to stem the flow of unwanted children who are often abandoned when their fathers leave their mothers with no income, no food, no social resources. Without formal education, and left to survive as a mother alone, women are forced to seek security with another man who often will not accept the women's children by another man – and child abandonment is often the result.
Watching my Alaskan students' eyes open wide as they explore and give back to the world around them is a gift that you can give these kids. It will change the way they see Alaska, their home, and the way they see the world and their future in it.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Deb and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.