Benefit At Reed To Support School In Ghana

By Nancy K. Crevier

The 200 RIS students who have developed pen pal relationships with Carolyn A. Miller Elementary (CAME) School students in Ghana over the past two year, as well as the many adults involved in the project, have a connection that runs deeper than pen and paper. Out of the pen pal program has grown the eye-to-eye project developed by RIS sixth grade teacher Karen King and several of her Newtown School System colleagues. The photography/writing eye-to-eye assignment carried through by the students in Newtown and in Ghana, and facilitated by educators from Newtown who traveled to the CAME School in the Buduburam Refugee Camp in February and April this year, provided the opportunity for students to compare the similarities and differences in their lives.

“It gives them the opportunity to see the world from a whole new perspective,” said Ms King. “That new perspective can be life changing for middle school students who would otherwise be somewhat insulated.”

In 2007, RIS students and the community raised more than $4,000 to buy supplies for the CAME School. And now, they are hoping to raise awareness for a new cause for their friends in Ghana.

The CAME School will close in August and the refugees resettled back in Liberia, whose borders they fled during the civil wars that rocked that country. In order to move the supplies and equipment that the school does own, a large truck must be rented. The school and the people of Buduburam do not have the money to do so.

Ms King and the students of RIS hope to raise $7,000 to rent that truck and to support the rebuilding of the CAME school in Bong County, Liberia.

“Finding Our Way Home” will be a special fundraising evening of photography by the RIS and CAME students, and the volunteers who traveled to Ghana, and a multimedia musical performance by RIS students, taking place Wednesday, June 18, at Reed Intermediate School on Trades Lane, from 7 to 9 pm. The public is invited.

Students in Ghana learned songs and were videotaped by Maryann Snieckus, NHS video tech instructor who traveled with Ms King to the refugee camp in February and April. “In one piece, we harmonize with the students in Ghana, which should be very special,” said RIS chorus director Michelle Tenenbaum. “In another song, while the Reed students are singing, a beautiful slide montage will take place on the big screen,” she said, thanks to the many hours and technological magic performed by Ms Snieckus.

Audience members will be guided through the story of the eye-to-eye project via a poetic work narrated by a RIS student, interspersed with video and live performances, Ms Tenenbaum explained. “This is a first and takes performance here to a new level,” she said. “This is a very exciting project that many of the teachers, myself included, have been happily consumed with.”

The June 18 concert will be an expansion of the RIS annual spring concert June 3, during which the RIS sixth grade chorus and orchestra will celebrate the African theme. “The June 3 concert will be a sort of teaser for the big June 18 performance,” Ms Tenenbaum said.

There will also be a display of artwork and writings by both African and local students inspired by the eye-to-eye project, a silent auction, and handcrafted jewelry for sale. Refreshments will be served. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.

Flagpole Photographers will be offering family and individual portraits for a nominal fee throughout the evening, all of which will be donated to support the CAME School.

“Our projects at Reed have always been homegrown, so we have not operated under any other organizations,” said Ms King. “Projects like this are important because it is easy to be lulled into a sense of complacency living in a beautiful and comfortable community like Newtown.”

It is her hope that the community will come together on the 18th of June to once again prove the generous spirit that has supported so many charitable efforts.

Through the generosity of resident Paul Carpenter, who donated 200 disposable cameras, Dental Associates, who contributed 200 toothbrushes to be distributed to refugees, the Newtown Rotary, the Newtown Lions Club, the Newtown Junior Women’s Club, Photoland of Newtown, Xpect Discounts, Unite for Sight, Flagpole Photographers, Trinity Church, North American Airlines, which donated tickets for volunteers to travel to Ghana in April, the Reed Interact Club, the RIS music department, and numerous others, students of Reed Intermediate School and Carolyn A. Miller Elementary School in the Buduburam Refugee Camp, Ghana, West Africa, have been able to build on a pen pal relationship that has enabled the children of Newtown to connect in a personal way with children who live in very different circumstances from their own.

 “Hopefully, eye-to-eye will provide a framework that students can build on as they grow into adulthood. It will prepare them to face some of the more beautiful and more harsh realities of our world,” said Ms King. “And it will help them to see themselves as participants and agents of positive change rather than as mere bystanders.”