Recently, a wonderful opportunity has come into the laps the M.A.R.E. Student Leaders from Eisenhower Intermediate School. Along with the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School’s practical arts class and the Homes for Living Hope organization students are gaining an opportunity to change the lives of children they’ve never met.
HLH is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded on the premise that they can help the disadvantaged and underprivileged, not only with monetary donations but through volunteer time and expertise. HLH works with local organizations to build ready-made facilities for impoverished communities. HLH enlists the help of volunteers to build usable housing, educational and/or medical facilities fashioned out of recycled shipping containers.
BRRHS believes its Home Improvement pedagogy is a uniquely accessible vehicle in which to support HLH. In addition, by providing access to real-world situations, BRRHS’ Home Improvement students are uniquely challenged to think beyond themselves and their local community. Through this project, students will gain the perspective that they are pro-active citizens of the global community. They will begin to understand the challenges that children their own age face in improvised countries like Uganda.
The practical arts class at BRRHS has raised enough money to aquire one of these containers and has been working for months outfitting the container with electrical, plumbing, ventilation, etc. in preperation as a future medical facility. However, it was missing something… this is where our M.A.R.E. Student Leaders stepped in. We were approached with the idea of how to bring “life” to the container. Instantly, we felt that a mural would be a solution. In addition, being that Uganda is land locked and it’s children will most likely never have the opportunity to see the ocean, what better theme than to bring the ocean to them.
We have spent weeks drawing renderings for the proposed mural and we are looking to begin on Saturday, May 12th. If you would like to monitor the progress of the container, check out http://www.brrsd.net/holh/. I’ve also posted images of the renderings and will continue to keep you updated. From one M.A.R.E. teacher to the next, I hope one can see how, with just a little bit of creativity, this is just another way M.A.R.E. can be implemented into our day to day teaching.
