Last school year near the end I talked to my class about a school in Zimbabwe,
the Matopo Primary School,
and showed them the materials I had collected, 100.- worth, to send to Zimbabwe. They were so motivated that they decided they wanted to help collect materials for the school.
In the process the kids learned about geography - they can tell you in an instant where Zimbabwe is- and they also learned about the darker side of politics and power. The word corruption came up as well.
The kids went to each class in their school and expained the situation of the children there, that they were very poor, many were orphans or half-orphans and some families were even run by the oldest child in the family. My class then began bringing materials to me, school bags, notebooks and all other sorts of school materials, to send to Matopo. We labelled whom the school bags were from and they sorted out the the pencils etc that were too small or not in good enough condition to send.
This is what the pile looked like afterwards:
Just recently we received a huge pile of letters written by hand from the head of the school as well as from the children of Matopo. They are moving letters and full of thankfulness. The kids are excited to get these letters and I hope they are willing to write back to these lovely children . In any case, the next step is to share with all the children of Krauer who donated even the smallest of contributions, and who knows, maybe next time we can send school bags full of materials to every child in Matopo Primary School with the help of other schools!
