Preparing for India!

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, it has been a busy few months!!

Our November 11 meeting at the New Hope Academy Charter School in York, PA, could not have gone any better! It was at this meeting that we gave our first demo of the eKWIP program and rolled out our plan to connect schools in the United States to schools in India.

We provided dinner for our guests and it was the first time eating Indian food for some of the audience. It was a cultural experience in itself.

Now it is time to plan our trip to India. We will actually be going to several different cities and schools to show them the eKWIP platform and connect them to the States.

Not only is eKWIP the platform that will connect the world, but all the teachers involved will have access to various lesson plans and teachable moments as well as have the ability to upload their own lessons and teachable moments.

Please check out the site at www.ekwip.net to learn more about the program.

eKWIP and more!

It has been a busy few months preparing for the launch of our web portal that is going to connect classrooms to India to classrooms in the US. There have been some minor setbacks, but we truly feel that we have developed the best possible portal for the connection.

On November 11, we will roll out the portal to our first audience in York, PA. We will give them a demo of eKWIP (Educating Kids with International Possibilities). We have explained the idea and shown mockups, but now it is time to go live and display the various functionality. Very exciting!!

We are also planning a trip to India in December to meet and connect with the schools there.

Will keep you posted.

THANK YOU

Ok, so new goal...once every two weeks!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Thank You to New Hope Academy in York, PA for signing onto our eKWIP program! We are so excited to work with you!! Also, we greatly appreciate your generous support and kindness in offering us training facilities and an office in PA!

We would also like to say a special Thank You to the Delhi Public School, Gwalior for also signing onto eKWIP! We are looking forward to visiting and meeting you soon. While New Hope will be our lead school in the States, DPS, Gwalior, will be our lead school in India. We look forward to hearing back from more schools so that we can partner schools appropriately.

I know, it has been a while...

So clearly, I need to get better about this blog thing. I have a lot to say, but it is hard to write it down. New goal, at least 1 entry per week and from there, I will increase.

With that said, it has been a productive last month and a half. We are committed to building the eKWIP site and it will be ready by October 4. We officially have schools in India and schools in the US on board and we are waiting to see who else would like to participate. In the meantime we are figuring out the logistics of the program, so when we launch, it will be smooth sailing.

On the Art front, we are having an exhibition of Bharati Parekh's work. Check out her website

at http://www.bharatiart.com/

Her work is bright, colorful, and reminiscent of India. In addition to displaying her work, we will have a conversation with the artist. The exhibition is co-sponsered by Payal Arts International (http://payalartsinternational.com/home.html) and Jasmine Wahi Contemporary Art (http://www.jasminewahi.com/). It is very inspiring to work with young entrepreneurs.

We are constantly looking for new artists to work with. If you are interested in working with CII. Please email us at ciiart@positiveglobalimpact.org.

Getting It Together

The past few weeks have been very exciting and busy! We have been adding to our website and our ideas are starting to really come together.

Yesterday, the Coalition for International Initiatives team spent the day in York, PA being trained to teach Environmental Education through Project Wild (http://www.projectwild.org/). We did not really know what to expect, but it turned out to be a great day.

We were invited by our Senior Program Advisor, Mike McGough and our Chief Academic Officer, Gregg McGough to observe and partake in a staff development day in Science and Environmental Ed. We participated in several interactive games and workshops as well as a stream study to learn about organisms in nature. Mrs. Joy Howell kept the day going and was an excellent resource. She had tons of ideas about how to make what we learned relevant and able in the classroom.

Although, I am not an educator, this experience was very useful in learning about how to teach children about the environment. Yesterday was also great because we had the opportunity to share our idea about eKWIP to our first audience. The participants for the day were student teachers, teachers with a few years of experience, retired teachers, and some administrators. They had positive feedback and great questions. We are looking forward to building the idea and rolling it out for future audiences. More to come...

Making a Positive Global Impact Through Social Initiatives

My family and I are so excited for our newest endeavor. We have started a non-profit organization called the Coalition for International Initiatives. Our mission and vision statements are below:

MISSION:

The Coalition for International Initiatives works to leverage social entrepreneurship in order to make a positive impact on the local and global community. We coordinate with like minded-organizations to cultivate a "pay-it-forward" way of thinking, and together we make a positive global impact through Education, Art, and the Environment.

VISION:

- Bridge Cultural and Geographic Divides through Interactive Education

- Encourage and Implement Philanthropic Efforts on a Community and Individual Level

- Organize Members, Volunteers and Resources in a collaborative effort to foster cross cultural good-will.