This is a re-post from the Detroit Zoological Society’s Blog from May 3, 2016 (https://detroitzooblog.org/2016/05/03/education-constructing-school-kitchens-in-peru/).
During the second week of our visit to Peru as part of the Adopt-A-School program, we continued to deliver donated school supplies to our final eight communities along the Amazon and Napo rivers. Students and teachers received pens, pencils, rulers, notebooks, textbooks and more that will assist with making learning accessible and achievable. The students showed their appreciation for this invaluable academic support by thanking the volunteers and giving presentions and cultural performances, many of which include ecological messages.
As part of the Adopt-A-School program, community partners must commit to following these requirements:
Children must go to school regularly
Conservation and preservation of the Amazon Rainforest must be standard community practice
Communities must be kept clean
Productive projects such as medicinal gardens or crops must be maintained in community spaces
Creating reverence and respect for the natural world starts in childhood, is re-enforced through schools and grows into adulthood. In some of the long-standing Adopt-A-School communities, some former program participants now have children within the program, further expanding conservation and preservation as a family value.
In addition to school supply deliveries, the second week of the Adopt-A-School visit includes a service project. This year’s project is taking place at Centro Unido and includes constructing a school kitchen for the government-funded Qali Warma (Quechua for “strong child”) meal program. This will allow parents to cook both breakfast and lunch every day at school to further incentivize attending class by providing meals, while making learning easier by removing hunger as a distraction.
While construction is going on, some volunteers work with the children, providing individualized attention that is hard to come by in a classroom setting. We do many crafts and art projects with the students, exposing them to different learning experiences that are sometimes missing in the rote learning style of Peru. This opportunity to interact one on one with students creates new friendships and many memories.
As this Adopt-A-School volunteer trip comes to an end, it is hard to say goodbye to all of the people we’ve met in Centro Unido as well as the volunteers who have committed their time, energy and finances to making this program a possibility. A big thank you goes out to all who made the 2016 Adopt-A-School school supply deliveries and service project a great success!
Are you interested in preserving the rainforest, one child at a time? For more information on Adopt-A-School donations and volunteer opportunities, please visithttp://detroitzoo.org/support/give/adopt-a-school.
– Adam Dewey is an education specialist for the Detroit Zoological Society.