Here are three video clips relating both to my recent trip to Bhutan with my dad and sister, and to a micro-finance class that my dad recently taught the 6th and 7th grade classes at Santa Barbara Middle School.
The first clip is from the trip we just took, and focuses on; the day we spent at two schools in Paro, revisiting with students we first met three years ago; a moment in time with Buddhist pilgrims worshiping at the National Memorial Chorten of Bhutan in Thimphu; and, the morning we spent with young monks at their monastery in the hills above Thimphu.
The second clip is from my dad's class, and is the video that we played for the Bhutanese elementary school class in the first video (A Return to Bhutan, at 5:50). In this clip, one of the Middle School classes has made a video of what a typical American classroom looks like, so the kids in Bhutan (who we were filming to show back home) could see the American class that would be seeing them. They were fascinated by the video, asking to watch it again and again - their favorite part being the Google Earth maps on one of the kid's computers in Santa Barbara.
The final clip is also from my dad's class and is a composite of some of the classrooms that my family has visited all around the world - it was the lead-in piece to help explain why and how my family became involved in micro-finance in the first place. It has segments from our first visit to Bhutan in 2009, including the vocational school for deaf students, the elementary school in Paro (both of which we just visited again), and, a school for young monks high in the Himalaya Mountains. (the Bhutan segment starts at 2:35)
[ADDED May 15, 2012] - Here's a local newspaper article about the class:
Santa Barbara Middle School Students Paying It Forward — Around the World
Parent Eric Sanborn shares a valuable lesson in micro-financing, with sixth- and seventh-graders 'investing' in business enterprises in poor countries
With the help of social studies teacher John Seigel-Boettner, Santa Barbara Middle School sixth- and seventh-graders utilize online resources to research people and businesses in need of financing in some of the world’s poorest countries. The school’s Sanborn family has generously given each student the minimum investment amount of $25. (Santa Barbara Middle School photo)
By Larry Good | 
| Published on 05.07.2012
| Published on 05.07.2012Imagine at your family dinner table your conversation takes you traveling to all seven continents around the globe, and instead of booking a comfortable hotel alongside a stretch of white sandy beach on your next vacation, you opt to stay with Buddhists in Bhutan, celebrate your younger daughter’s birthday with Bedouin “terrorists,” or volunteer in the schoolhouses of the indigenous tribes in Africa. That is what Santa Barbara Middle School’s Sanborn family of five has chosen to do over the past 12 years.
Eric Sanborn, SBMS parent, recently shared some of these stories in his younger daughter’s class at Santa Barbara Middle School. His main reason for addressing sixth- and seventh-grade students was to share the success and enthusiasm his family has had loaning money to people in some of the world’s poorest countries. It’s not a new concept, but it is a rewarding one. It’s called micro-financing.
During the past seven years, the Sanborn family has helped finance loans to more than 2,500 individuals and their small businesses in more than 60 countries around the globe.
“We ‘lend’ money to people rather than ‘give’ money to a cause, so that the loan beneficiaries can build their businesses and prosper,” Sanborn said.
Nearly 99-percent of the loans made by the Sanborns have been repaid.
Currently, 60 SBMS students are trying this idea on for size in their own “pay-it-forward” experience. Lessons in micro-financing in John Seigel-Boettner’s sixth- and seventh-grade social studies classes, with help from Sanborn, are centered on Kiva.org, the Community Action Fund for Women in Africa and other micro-financing organizational models.
The students are learning about currency rates, interest rates, social obstacles to business development in Third World countries, and how to distinguish between charity and loans. The curriculum was designed to allow the young people to connect first with the outer journeys of the Sanborn family as they traveled the world. Then the students joined the more personal inner journey that the family took, which was mostly completed around the family’s dinner table. It was these dinnertime conversations that compelled them to “do something” for the people they had met and ultimately led them to micro-financing.
The Sanborns have generously given each student the minimum investment amount of $25 with the hope of teaching the students that their investment decisions have real-world application. Students choose from thousands of people and businesses in need of financing. Online Kiva.org provides a business description, photo, country of origin and spells out the repayment risk of each investment.
Seigel-Boettner is always trying to connect his students with other cultures throughout the world.
“The human connection is something I always try to do in my teaching,” he said. “The other half is to empower kids to be part of it. This unit is helping put a face and a name on the world.”
Seventh-grade student Alea Hyatt chose to invest in a woman from Ghana who sells fish for a living.
“Instead of saying we’re going to make a change, but end up not doing anything, we actually are changing lives by investing $25,” Hyatt said.
Seventh-grader Daniel Solomon chose a Colombian man who installs gas lines for his micro-loan. Solomon says this work makes him feel good about himself.
“You actually feel like you’re making a difference,” he said. “You get to change someone’s life.”
Another business investment is Deryn Gersoff’s loan to a women’s business consortium in Guatemala that makes sweatshirts, weaves baskets and raises animals. Like many of her fellow students, Gersoff has already received partial repayment.
“It’s hard to believe that there is actually someone on the other end, and when the money is repaid, this whole experience becomes more real,” Gersoff said.
“In social studies we learn ways to make a difference, but in this way we actually are making a difference,” seventh-grader Jaime Schuyler said with a smile.
That’s music to Seigel-Boettner’s ears. He hopes that when his students put their head on the pillow at night that they think about someone on the other side of the world. He says the final exam of this lesson plan comes seven or eight years later, when he receives a postcard from one of his former students saying, “I’ve started a soccer camp in Tanzania, or I am in Philadelphia at an inner-city school teaching children.”
Seigel-Boettner said he is always eager to know which lessons of his have made a real difference in the lives of his students.
Most every student says that once repaid they plan to reinvest with another new stranger or business venture somewhere else in the world. Sanborn is hopeful that the seeds he has planted will take hold, and the students will come out different on the other side of this experience.
“You can tell they have made a connection with the people they have loaned to,” Sanborn said, “and it’s that connection that is important.”
I really like to read your passages and I think they are really interesting.
ReplyDeletehello nice blog Hugh from jims class
ReplyDeletegood job Hugh Jim's class
ReplyDelete