I am posting this for a third group of Juniors, who are working on a third project. If anyone is interested, either comment or email me.

The Juniors at the North Shore Country Day School have been actively researching many different project as a result a research project which has arisen from a service learning initiative. After hearing a presentation by Jeffrey Sachs, a noted macroeconomist who created the U.N.’s Millennium Goals towards global development and improvement, the students became very interested in Millennium Promise.  This is an organization Sachs created that works to make the U.N.’s Millennium Goals actual realities, and within it is one especially interesting endeavor, the Village Project. This program ‘adopts’ certain villages across Africa and uses technology and intelligent investments to completely revitalize the community.  By drastically improving healthcare, agricultural methods, education, and infrastructure, the Village Project raises these towns and the areas around them out of extreme poverty, creating a sustainable system that enables the people there to survive and work and live their lives.

The students at North Shore knew they wanted to get involved.  They had heard that the city of Chicago, with the Chicago Promise organization, had recently adopted a village in Kenya, pledging $1.5 million over the next five years.  Clearly they knew they could not raise this sort of money alone, but what if other schools got involved? ?  If 300 schools together adopted a village, each school would need to pledge only $1000 a year for five years—a pretty reasonable commitment.

They’ve communicated with Pat Bassett, the president of NAIS, the National Association of Independent Schools, and he has promised to include our mission in his e-bulletin, which will go out to the more than 1,200 member schools.  And they’ve also asked our faculty to contact other independent schools where we have friends and ask them to join us.

I am asking if you think your school would be interested in cooperatively adopting a village in Africa.  By raising $1000 a year for five years, we can do something that is actually a spectacular feat. So please, see if your school would be able and willing to join our mission, and then send the message on to friends you have at other independent schools.  Then please contact Kathy McHugh, (kmchugh@nscds.org) the teacher here who is overseeing this project, or Vinnie Vrotny, (vvrotny@nscds.org),our Director of Academic Technology.

The Village Project ( http://www.millenniumpromise.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home) is an incredible initiave that will bring an entire community back from the edge. It’s an opportunity to work towards a better world.