School Ties goes Home!

School Ties hosted a great homeschool group today! We talked about the difficulty many children around the world have attending school. After watching a few videos on the subject we brainstormed ideas to help improve the situation. Each of the kids made a poster to share something they learned, a helpful idea, or an important point in our discussion. They each presented their poster to the group. We made friendship bracelets and looked at a few bracelets that the children in Kenya made. We pointed out the Falkland Islands, Kenya, and Liberia on the map and talked a bit about geography. As always, KIDS have the biggest hearts! They were excited to learn and create ideas to help the world. Their hearts are always energizing!
If you have a homeschool group that would like to participate, we’d love to hear from you!

The Falkland Islands

I wanted to share a bit about our latest School Ties connection to a school in the Falkland Islands.  Where’s that?  We know!  Rich Smith, the teacher at the school, sent us some pictures to help us get to know them better before we met via Skype.  This is a picture of the kids standing in front of their school.

A lot of rain has washed away the only road leading out of the settlement. This makes it difficult to buy food during their once a week 1 hour shopping trip.

A washed up jellyfish.

Here’s an excerpt from one of the many emails that Rich has sent:

Living on the settlement
though has real benefits such as free meat
throughout the year and also low rent and fuel is
cheap too. The cost of fresh fruit/vegetables is
very high though as it is mostly imported from
Chile and very little is actually grown here
(especially fruit).
In terms of the different nationalities on the
islands, there are very few problems. If people
arrive ready to work hard and join in then they
are invariably welcomed with open arms. The people
here are the friendliest and most accommodating I
have ever met. The conflict is still very raw for
many people, with most of the islanders here
having recollections of different aspects. It is
incredible listening to some of the stories from
people once they feel comfortable enough to open
up to you and share. Some Argentines who fought in
the conflict or lost loved ones still visit the
islands to see the Argentine cemetery as many of
the bodies were not repatriated to Argentina as
they believe the islands are Argentinian
I am from the UK, I have been here a year and love
it. The weather is a little cold at the moment but
the weather is very similar to that in the UK
although much windier!

Now, if you’ve made it to this point and still haven’t Googled Falkland Islands, here you go

A little Wikipeida search here to get an idea of the recent past conflicts of the islands.