Martin Herbst (top row, second from left) and the Monarch Park Youth in Action Group building a school in Kenya.
The Adopt a Village campaign is often the seedling teachers bring back to their schools. At this stage, the seedling may take many forms, from a school-wide campaign to build a school in Sri Lanka to a classroom-based initiative to construct a clean water project in Sierra Leone.
But help and support doesn’t always come right away.
From our work with thousands of teachers, we understand and respect that every school context is different. As part of our commitment to you, our Youth Programming Team is only a phone call or e-mail away and is excited to provide you with resources, ideas and speakers to help jumpstart Adopt a Village at your school and support you throughout your efforts.
Sometimes a teacher says it best.
Working in Monarch Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, teacher Martin Herbst started small, gaining support from a few trusted colleagues. Interest among teachers, administrators and students quickly gained momentum, and over the past few years Monarch Park has raised the funds to build two schools in Kenya…and more! In fact, Martin and a group of students just returned from a trip to Kenya where they spent a month building the second Free The Children school they fundraised for.
When asked to share advice on getting started, Martin put it this way:
“Patience is key. Total commitment by everyone is not possible.
We decided that we were going to start something. It started out small: a single coin drive every Thursday. Then a few people who were watching decided to get involved.
At Monarch Park there was a realization that we are doing something bigger than ourselves...we were making a difference. Students began to take pride not only in what they were doing but why they were doing it. You could see a palpable shift in attitude as the students realized, ‘I make a difference and by working together we have changed the world.’
Of course, the most powerful incentive of all is if you have the opportunity to look into the eyes of the student who you have helped, as we had the opportunity to do in Kenya, and there is no doubt that you have changed their world for the better.”
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