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Community Corner

Corbett Prep Students Seek to Change the World, Bracelet by Bracelet

Sept. 24, 2013 (TAMPA, Fla.) — Students at Corbett Preparatory School of IDS hope to give girls in Afghanistan the chance for an education — one green bracelet at a time.

Classes in PreK3 through eighth grade have joined in the Project New Hope Challenge, a fundraiser with the National Educator Program (NEP). For $5 each, students and adults can buy green bracelets that say “I’m changing the world” and support an effort to improve education in Afghanistan.

NEP has partnered with a school in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and wants to bring its principal and two teachers to the United States to receive training on career academies. Schools participating in the Project New Hope Challenge seek to raise $10,000 through bracelet sales and other activities to cover travel costs for the educational team.

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The educators can then bring back what they have learned to Afghanistan and begin to build an environment where students can grow into community leaders.

Corbett Prep students are embracing the initiative. Within 13 days, the school had sold 211 bracelets in a friendly competition with the eight other schools nationally who are participating in the challenge. Bracelets are available in the offices in both the East and West Sides of campus. The family of one Primary student in the “Cool Cats” class bought bracelets for her entire class at her request. At the Middle School, student leaders have been busy manning tables for bracelet sales and developing strategies to spread the word to reach more people.

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Representatives from the Middle School Student Council visited fifth graders this week to talk to them about ways they, in turn, could lead Primary and Intermediate students in the bracelet challenge. They conducted a brainstorming exercise with the fifth grade to generate ideas for how to get more students involved. The fifth grade class had 30 seconds to think about options silently and then had a minute to write down and call out the possibilities.

The Middle School students’ activity helped inspire the fifth graders, whose ideas included making fliers, telling grandparents, mailing cards and posting on social media.

Middle School social studies teacher Chris Ochoa said it has been amazing to see the excitement and care the students have displayed during the project.

“I think the kids realize that it is much bigger than selling bracelets,” Ochoa said. “I think they realize that every time they sell a bracelet, they are directly affecting the change in a community. My hope as a teacher is to show these students that one person really can make a difference. I want them to look back on this experience and say, ‘Wow! Look at what we were able to do. Look what we were able to accomplish together. From now on, this community is going to benefit from the work that we were able to accomplish.’”

Corbett Prep kicked off the fundraiser earlier this month at an assembly, where students cheered along with a video they watched on the project. Six schools from four countries, including Corbett Prep, worked together to produce the upbeat, inspiring video.

The video that introduces Project New Hope is posted at http://vimeo.com/nep1/musicvideox.

Schools have until Oct. 31 to sell as many bracelets as they can.

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