We still have some space left!

August 7 – August 14, 2005

The Take Action! Academy is a one-week summer program that empowers young people by educating them about social issues and children's rights, and by providing them with the leadership training and tools they need to make a difference. Participants will receive both educational and hands-on experience through seminars, workshops, games, and amazing adventures!

If you are between the ages of 8 and 25, you are more than welcome to come! Be ready to make life-long friendships. Bring a group and invite friends, family, or classmates to enrich the experience!

For more information, please contact Alem Tedeneke, Director of International Trips

Leaders Today, Kenya Trip 2005

By: Liz Chen

One of my close friends, Joe, used to say to me, “We’re all the same person, deep down inside. We’re just born in different places, at different times, in different situations.” I never really understood the gravity of his statement and the sheer truth embodied in it until a few weeks ago.

I was teaching at Laila Primary School on the edge of the Maasai Mara, in Kenya. It was raining, and I was attempting to teach my three-child class of eager sixth-graders (each class had been split so that students could have more individual attention and not be intimidated by the volume of volunteers). Because the roofs of the new buildings at Laila are made from corrugated tin, a rainstorm makes it hard to teach. When a thunderstorm arrived, the noise became overwhelming and I was forced to stop the class and take a break.

The students sat quietly and copied my poorly drawn scientific diagrams as I marvelled at their ability to learn in these buildings, having grown up with carpeted, temperature-controlled classrooms. My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the class door swung noisily open.

In walked an older boy rather jauntily. He carried himself with confidence; boiling over with energy. He introduced himself as David, and told me he was 17 years old. Just a week before, I had turned 18. He immediately asked about my education, and when I said I was on the verge of graduating high school, he blurted out, “Can I come to your school? How can I go to secondary school?” Sadly, David’s parents cannot afford a secondary education for him, so he is in the seventh grade for the second time. Laila has no eighth grade class and David wants so badly to be in school. He spoke of how he wants to become a travel guide so that he can teach mazungu (foreigners) about his home country of Kenya. He is so proud of his dream and the potential his future holds.

Later that night, Joe’s statement hit me.

David is me –born in a different place, in a different situation. He has hopes and dreams and loves life and learning as much as I do. I can understand his yearning for knowledge. We are different, yet the same.

Liz Chen has been involved with Free The Children for a number of years. For the past two years, she has been the director of Scarsdale High School's Free The Children, Youth in Action group. This group has raised more than $15,000 to build both a mobile medical clinic and a school in Kenya.