Break Out!
(Based on the celebrated CBC Television series)
Alaina Podmorow
Alaina Podmorow was 9 years old when she heard that many girls didn’t go to school in Afghanistan because there was no money to pay teachers. Alaina decided to raise funds and she also started a group called Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan (LWFLW) with many chapters so even more people could be involved. Alaina says, “The worst thing you can do is… nothing.” LWFLW has raised money to pay for 200 teachers and their fundraising drives are stronger than ever.
SPEAKOUT!
Kelsy: Education Eniwari
“I was so lucky to travel to Eniwari. It’s a remote village in Nigeria. You need to take a flight, a bus and a boat to get there! In Canada, we complain that we don’t have this [or] we don’t have that. Here the teacher’s desk is falling apart. They don’t have enough pencils or pens. When it rains, the kids can’t go to school because the classrooms get flooded! And maybe five kids would have a book between them. But they are all so eager to learn and they are so smart! When I went into a math class, guess what they were learning? The same things that I [was learning] in Canada—the quadratic equation! The teacher was great! He explained it all to me. The people in this village don’t have a lot, but education brings hope. The new school that we are helping to build here is a way out, and for some of these kids, it’s all they have. I hope in the future everyone graduates.”
BREAKOUTER!
James Valitchka
James is a 12-year-old author who has written nine books. His first book, SUPERHEROES DON’T HAVE DADS, was published when he was just 8 years old! The talented writer had this to say about his experiences: “When I was younger, I used to be bullied because I didn’t have a dad. It was just my mom who came to all my games. So I became a bully myself. My mother encouraged me to read and she said ‘Look at Superman. He doesn’t have a Dad.’ I thought you know there are other kids out there who are going through the same stuff that I am. So I wrote my first book, SUPERHEROES DON’T HAVE DADS. It was so crazy to get my book published.” James now runs conferences and is a motivational speaker.
B! FACTS
– Did you know the main reason children leave school without being fully literate is because of poverty?
– People with difficulties in literacy have only two-thirds of the income of other adults.
– 50% of people cannot work well with words and numbers.
– 22% of people do not have reliable reading levels.
– Did you also know that 10 million people are working at marginal levels of literacy?
All this is happening right here in Canada!
YOU TOO CAN BREAKOUT! TO FIND OUT HOW GO TO: www.breakoutonline.ca