Check this out...

Lawrence, one of the students who participated in our workshop at the International School of Tianjin, just e-mailed me a video he made for the United Nations World Food Programme. I believe he submitted it for a contest and it looks great!

Check it out..



Go to his youtube page and let him know what you think!

Midwest Love

5:17 CHICAGO-

Hello All!

Greetings from the ESPN Zone in Chicago.  As I sit here watching the Olympics and eating something relatively healthy for me (a REAL chicken salad – with lettuce and chicken tenders) I am able to take some time and update you on the happenings of our tour and the whereabouts of yours truly. 

Today we have off thanks to National holidays in both Canada and the United States (it's President's Day here and Family Day there).  We arrived yesterday after having spent a week in the great state of New York.  We had a school each day last week despite the imminent threats of snow all week.  We started off at a wonderful school in Buffalo, then flew to the City in order to be at a school in Manhattan on Tuesday, Albany on Wednesday, Mt. Vernon on Thursday and finally Long Island on Friday.  Friday evening we flew from NY to Chicago, IL where we have spent the weekend.  I have been able to catch up with some friends and family which has been really nice. 

Our tour is going well right now.  We have made some minor adjustments in our speech and our workshop and have been trying out a few new things here and there.  For those of you unfamiliar with the format of one of our days it generally goes something like this:

6:30 – Wake up, get ready, check out of our hotel, try to find the school (a tall order sometimes)

8:30-9:30 Tech Check

9:45 – 10:45 Keynote address to the entire student population - Focuses on stories of youth making a difference, the founding of Free the Children, our organizational initiatives and our own personal stories of taking action.

11:00 – 12:00 Workshop Part I with a group of 25-30 students usually a part of their social action group. Usually we spend this time getting to know the kids, playing games, and finding out what will help benefit their group the most moving forward.  We do one activity focusing on Leadership or Issues followed by a quick game and then…

12:00 – 1:00 Lunch

1:00 – 3:00 Workshop Part II (Same group of students as before) Here we go a little further in depth with some awareness, teambuilding, or more leadership  activities depending on the what the group needs.  We finish the workshop with a solid amount of time to help the group action plan. We help them figure out what their passions are, both with activities they like to do and issues that they really care about, and then we help them put them together to come up with fun activities to raise awareness or funds.  

Afterwards we make our trek back to our new (or previous) hotel we generally spend an hour or two documenting our day and following up with e-mails accumulated throughout the day.  Depending on how far the next school is (and how lost we get) we usually are back in a hotel as early as 4 or as late as 12. 

That is the general format of the day, though it varies all the time.  Tonight we will be traveling to Springfield in order to make it for our 7:30 tech check time at a school there. 

All along the road we have been coming across some truly inspirational students and educators.  Last week we came across a group of 10 and 11 year olds at a resource-poor school that had managed to fundraise and convince their parents and faculty to let them travel to Keyna with Me to We trips.  This year they will be traveling to Ecuador.  Absolutely incredible. 

Unfortunately, my battery is about to conk out on me, but my warm cookie has arrived and Tony Riali and the Around the Horn crew is about to keep me company.  Much love.

 Steve