LiveLearning presents the 2008 International Service-Learning "Train the Trainers" Workshop, in the Dominican Republic this June:

There is no better way for educators to learn about service-learning than to experience it themselves. We invite you to join us on our second annual service-learning workshop in the Dominican Republic. Designed for educators, this nine-day expedition takes a “train the trainers” approach, immersing you in an intensive service experience in order to help you learn how to coordinate future service-learning programs for students at your own school. This experience will give you the grounding you need in service-learning and civic engagement to develop – or refine – a service-learning program that will provide a high educational benefit to your students and a commensurate benefit to the communities you visit.

The 2007 workshop drew educators from around the country and abroad, including Buckingham Browne & Nichols, University of Kentucky, The Field School, Miami University and CIEE. This year's workshop is again being offered in conjunction with the NAIS, but educators from all levels and school affiliations are welcome.

Learn more about the 2008 "Train the Trainers" Service-Learning Workshop for educators.

This was one of the most well-organized, thoughtful, and psychologically challenging development opportunities I have experienced... Be prepared to work mentally a little bit more than physically and to learn how to balance the needs and questions of both the teacher and the student in all of us.
      -- Jessica Melton, The Field School, 2007 Service-Learning Workshop participant

BB&N plans major service-learning project during summer expedition

The Buckingham Browne & Nichols School will travel on a LiveLearning expedition this summer. The group of 20 students from the school population at large will spend 11 days in the Dominican Republic where they will assist with a major community development project and take part in a soccer tournament of teams from across the country. The group will also take courses in local organic agricultural techniques and will have the opportunity to volunteer in the community garden project initiated and funded by the UVM program which traveled with LiveLearning in January of 2008.

Margot Caso, a Spanish teacher at BB&N, is the driving organizational force for this program. She contacted LiveLearning and asked for a curriculum that addressed her specific goals of intensive community interaction with opportunities to practice language skills, as well as engagement in a service project which was important to our community partner and provided opportunities for growth and learning in her students. "I'm incredibly excited about this trip," she said. "This is going to be a life-changing experience for our students."

LiveLearning honored with $19,000 gift

The LiveLearning program is pleased to announce an unrestricted donation of $19,000 from an anonymous donor. The gift, initiated in early 2007 and fully realized in December, has allowed LiveLearning to invest the considerable resources required for researching, visiting and developing potential community partners throughout Latin America. Additionally, the gift has contributed towards support of our in-country community partners, and was critical in subsidizing a recent educational expedition with the Gailer School to Peru. A small percentage has been used to cover overhead and administrative expenses, which LiveLearning has been able to keep to just several hundred dollars per month. "This gift has been of extraordinary value to LiveLearning," said Alex Graham, Executive Director. "it's allowed us to achieve both our educational and community-buidling goals at a high level, far sooner than exepected."

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT STUDENTS TAKE CREAR BY STORM

On January 2nd, a group of 13 University of Vermont students, led by John Hayden of the Plant and Soil Science Department, arrived in the Dominican Republic for a Service-Learning program. Their primary goal: to help initiate a community garden project in Batey Libertad. (A "batey" is a Haitian community, typically quite poor, within the Dominican Republic). To do so, they first visited CREAR with the LiveLearning Program to gain an introduction to local techniques of organic agriculture, to engage in cultural exchange with a Dominican community, and to learn about the complex and difficult relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic that face this remote border region, and the country as a whole. Thanks to rain-soaked roads, the group’s arrival in the town of Rio Limpio was a triumphant, muddy adventure.

The UVM group brought as their guests two Haitians from Batey Libertad, Franklin and Yanliko, who took part in the training and cultural exchanges and were welcomed into the community of Rio Limpio. UVM also brought seeds for CREAR, donated by High Mowing Seeds, (as did LiveLearning -- donated by Gardener’s Supply) and equipment for Rio Limpio’s baseball and softball teams, generously collected and donated by the students of Edmund’s School.

The expedition was a great success, in large part because the UVM students proved less-than shy when it came to dancing. The expedition moved on to visit and live in Batey Libertad while helping to begin the work for the community garden. Two of the group remain there through March to help guide the process and teach more about agricultural techniques and garden management.

Click HERE for more recent news from LiveLearning.