Inside Out: South Africa from Ari Snow on Vimeo.

One of the projects the students completed was a large, 2 piece tile mosaic with the image of Chavez on it, as well as some other illustrations that were drawn by students.  This mosaic is gorgeous, and represents hundreds of hours creating, cutting tile, gluing pieces in, and painstaking attention to detail to complete.  Our hope is that the mosaic will hang in a visible location, perhaps at one of the schools where our students attend in Ventura.  Working on this project provided many hours to continue developing relationships with students, and led to many significant conversations. There were moments where there were 10-12 students working together, and other times where it was an adult or two, and just one or two students.  It was amazing to see how many other kids, teens, and adults from the community dropped in and also lent a hand to this project.  The ability for our work with the kids to radiate out into the community starts with projects such as this, and it was a pleasure to meet the many new people who helped.  Lots of us felt a true sense of accomplishment when this eight foot by 4 foot mosaic was finally finished, and unveiled at our fiesta. The community members were delighted with this gorgeous mosaic, and it was an excellent “conversation starter” for us as we talked to parents, Cabrillo Village community members, as well as others from Ventura who were invited to attend the fiesta.

The other project was the students photography series which focused on the character quality of respect. These 4th and 5th graders each created their own display of their best images.  Watching them select their images, organize them so they looked artistic, and glue them onto the display boards was incredible.  There was such pride in their faces!  Each student wrote a bit about themselves, and what they have learned about photography and respect for their display board.  It was amazing to read their sentiments, and to realize that what we have worked on is making a difference in their thinking, and in their lives!

my mom

When I think of Africa, the word BIG enters my mind. It is massive and it is complex.

InSite just completed it’s second trip to Enkanini, South Africa where we helped renovate a newly aquired community center, cemented and flood proofed it, as well as, laid the foundation for a local resident to start a restaurant. Did I mention we helped plant a garden, volunteered in a creche, hung 43 HUGE Posters for the Inside out global art project sponsored by artist JR and TED? What about the fact that we helped organized and stream line the feeding scheme in Stellenbosch that feeds hundreds of people a week? How about meeting Desmond Tutu… did I mention that? Come on 18 April to hear the stories from the students themselves. What they learned, how they grew, what they will take with them, etc.

As we all know, putting a face to poverty and oppression is way more powerful than simply studying it. Working alongside the poverty;  smelling it, touching it, feeling it is something you can’t forget. Leadership seeped in character development is all about action: What are you going to do about it? What is our role in it? How can we fill in the gaps in front of us? Come and hear the stories. Be inspired.

This will not be an easy task and it will take a very long time. Transforming work is slow, as it requires paradigm shifts in thinking and behaving. Trish and Shawna spent ten days working with the teaching staff in March taking them through Reckoning’s Approach to character and leadership development, and in June the Reckoning team from California and Trish will return for part 2.

To join Reckoning and Kingdom Citizen’s International School in this vision of raising globally minded, compassionate and just leaders: share this story with others, donate to this cause, let us know how your talents and passion can make a difference in this work. We would love to hear from you!

What hope looks like

Learners discover what respect means, as they discover how they experience respect. They create a symbol of respect on watercolor paper; write ways people are disrespectful to one another or we disrespect ourselves on black paper. Weave the two images together.

Download the pdf

Respect.
I am in a thick of it too: making my 3D super hero – alter ego. I just love this project! It’s so fun but also pretty confronting – even for an adult. You go through such a deep process of thinking ‘who am I and what could I be, or what would I like to be, who and what do I really admire?

Respect is one of our 7 pillars which we rehearse, talk, analize, question, remind, model, encourage, (and sadly forget sometimes too) all the time at LEAD. Respect, this is a tough one! Yet, when making my own little super hero, I notice that it’s really, really valuable and important one for me. I so long to be someone whose behaviour is rooted in a deep respect for life; people (including myself, it is really hard to respect others without respecting yourself), earth, and God. In the end aren’t all of our super heros the ones that we respect greatly as persons?

We all want to be respected, (i.e. treated with respect/ value,) yet we cannot demand respect. So we need to learn to give first. Only then will we receive back – sometimes.

I still remember vividly one encounter with a child last year when the task was to draw a symbol of respect and this one girl sat still without lifting her pencil with a blanck sheet of paper before her. I gently approached her and asked what’s wrong. She was clearly frustrated by the assignment and said: ‘how could I know how respect looks like if I have never been shown respect to or treated with respect?’ She obviously felt deeply misunderstood and devalued at that moment. It is a great challenge for us who work with (or parent) children to show consistent genuine respect towards our children. Showing respect to a child doesn’t always look the same as showing respect to an adult, but often it doesn’t differ that radically as we often let ourselves believe. We need to become eager learners of this skill.

Respect (according to Oxford dictionary)

1 [mass noun] a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

2 due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.