Students Connect Across the Globe

Washtenaw Alliance for Virtual Education is a secondary options program for at-risk youth who live in Washtenaw County, MI.  Over the past 2 years, we (2 teachers at Washtenaw Alliance) have been working with our local rotary club, Rotary of Ann Arbor West, on project "Hope Rising". The project includes helping a group of girls living in Sri Lanka at the Grace Care Center Orphanage due to the Sri Lankan civil war that lasted for 25 years and ended in 2009.  Our help involves our students meeting with these girls weekly via Skype to better their English language speaking and reading skills; and to open their eyes to career opportunities that exist beyond what they experience in their daily lives. In turn, our students are learning a great deal about communicating in different mediums and with people that come from very different circumstances and cultures.

To further this project, we would like to take our students to Sri Lanka to meet and work face-to-face with the girls in the orphanage. A trip is already planned for a large group of the Rotary members and their families. We have been invited to go, if we can raise the airfare. The airfare is more than $2000 per person. We are hoping for 2 teachers and 4 students to go to Sri Lanka for two weeks this summer, which will cost around $12,000 total in airfare.

If our students go to Sri Lanka, we believe their lives will be impacted in significant ways. They will learn about and understand culture, civil war, empathy, community service, and history. The girls in Sri Lanka will be immensely impacted as well by working closely with our students during the trip on leadership training, reading lessons, and improving their English Language speaking skills. 

Thank you for your thought and consideration!