Events and Opportunities we are prayerfully looking forward to.

I. Hope Corps Volunteers:

1. Brian Gangloff, a School Psychology doctoral student at University at Buffalo, (NY) is bringing training for Positive Reinforcement in Classroom and School Wide Management. (May -July )
2. Audra O’rouka, a Biology student of Grove City College, (PA) is bringing science and health training. (June – July )
3. Marianne Kinney, a recent graduate holding a masters degree from Teachers College, Columbia University (NY) in International Educational Development with a concentration in African Education and International Humanitarian Issues. She has acquired a Project for Peace grant to meet literacy training needs and constructive classroom discipline. See Project for Peace article for more information. (July )
4. Joshua Karoud a Canadian is planning to work with TE to discipline the youth in the school and through clubs. (September-?)

II. EduNations Three EduNations representative will be exploring the progress of the schools they are sponsoring.

III. Logos Hope Ship (bringing knowledge, help and hope) plans to be in Sierra Leone the last few weeks of June. They offer special programs to the local schools. One program allows the schools to take their students onboard the ship and the other is for a ship team to come to the schools.

IV. Vision Sharing / USA Visit: the Director Gwen Smith’s will be in the USA August to share the vision of Transformation Education at the Forth Annual TE event, churches, clubs…

V. Transformation Education Resource Centre establishing, opening and ministering. Samuel the resource centre manager will be transferring the supplies to the new space in June. He will lead in establishing a catalog and lending system, train our pilot school teachers on the centre procedures and help them use resources that are most relevant to their students.

VI. Mercy Ships’ (bringing hope and healing) plans to be in Sierra Leone for ten months in 2011. TE’s director, Gwen is a Mercy Ships’ alumni. It is Mercy Ships’ that introduced her to Sierra Leone. We look forward to opportunity to host and minister together with the crew member.

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Project for Peace / Transformation Education:
Marianne Kinney wrote for a grant to for Transformation Education. She will be in Sierra Leone in July to implement the project with the following goals.
1. Professional development: We will conduct a full week of the professional development that the 120 teachers in Transformation Education partner-schools regularly request. The sessions will focus on the Four-Blocks Literacy Model and constructive discipline classroom management. The teachers are growing in these areas, yet need help in content competence and teaching methods so that the students are engaged in their learning and so that growth is holistic, i.e. behavioral, cognitive, and social. The workshops will model the active-learning methods, not simply dispensing information, but allowing teachers to practice and reflect on their teaching content and pedagogy and their pivotal role in Sierra Leone’s renewal.
2. Physical learning environments: In many classrooms of the 11 partner schools of Transformation Education (TE), teachers have no place to secure materials over night. A colleague in the Ministry of Education quickly identified this as one of the teachers’ biggest physical needs. We will coordinate the installation of at least one securable storage cabinet in each school. Teachers will then be able to access and use instructional materials that allow them to vary their teaching methods and engage their students while meeting their learning objectives.