Happy New Year and/or Happy Harvest Season to all our friends and family!

 

As mentioned previously, in addition to running the workshop this past July in Kasama, we were also able to sponsor 4 scholarships for students at Chileshe Cheplea School with the access funding raised. We  have received the names and photos of the children who's educations are now being made possible by your donations! 

Introducing our PTM Sponsored Pupils...

Joseph Bwalya - Grade 11

 Raphael Ng'onga - Grade 10

 Mercy Chilufya - Grage 8

 Gift Chipasha - Grade 6

We are planning to send the school some small school supplies that we've collected along with photos from the workshop. If anyone would like to write personal letters to the teacher or students please feel free to contact or email them to me: ellynlambeck@gmail.com, before the end of October, so they can be included in the package!

Thank you all again, your donations have not been forgotten!

Education is a gift that never stops giving!

And that's a wrap!

Hello Paint the Movement Partners!

We made it back to the states and are still glowing from the entire experience! Paint the Movement was a bigger success than we even imagined possible. The teachers learned a lot, contributed a ton, and left with some new tools to make them better teachers and advocates for special needs children. We got everyone in the physical therapy room and feeling comfortable using the equipment and doing some basic exercises. We played some fun but very competitive games and found that the teachers were gaining a lot of new information from the sessions and were cut-throat when it comes to winning! The biggest hits of the training ended up being homemade Playdough and connect the dots. Lesson plan ideas were flying after those activities and it was hard to have the teachers even move onto the next session!

The final day was full of smiles, excitement, and all kinds of learning activities. The mural was a HUGE success. The children loved getting to paint and did it with such concentration and pride. They didn't want to put the paintbrush down. The hand-print tree was amazing and still gives me chills when I think about it. I'll never forget turning around and seeing 15 students in wheel chairs coming towards me with big smiles and hands ready. The amazing stencils made by Tarik Ragab were a big hit and had people talking. While we were spraying them, one boy with crutches came up and point at the stencil. With a smile he said that's like me! We were also able to help two boys spruce up their wooden wheel chairs with a new coat of paint while we were putting the finishing touches on the mural.

Because of your AMAZING support we made it to 115% and we put that extra funding to great use! First we were able to include more teachers that wanted to be part of the workshop. We ended up having 49 teachers involved in the training. And the District Resource Coordinator was having such a good time, he stayed for 2 whole days instead of just stopping by. Secondly, We were able to scholarship four students for a whole year of boarding school. We met with the Deputy head on the last day and figure out we could scholarship a 7th,9th,10th, and 11th grade for the full three terms plus one term for an 8th grader. The Deputy head is going to meet with other teachers and figure out which pupils can use the scholarships most. He said he will send us names and hopefully pictures so you can get to know them a bit more. It was such an amazing gift we were able to give so thank you once again.

We are getting the incentives ready so keep an eye on your mail box. We have tons of pictures on our facebook page if you would like to see more from the week. If there are any pictures you love and would like to have. Send me an email (stevie.greenwell@gmail.com) and I am happy to send you a higher quality .jpeg than facebook can offer.

https://www.facebook.com/paintthemovement

We want you to feel like you were there and open up the blog. What would you like to hear about? What questions do you have about Zambia? Questions about the school or week? Send us any or all your questions either on the blog or our facebook and we can continue the sharing.

We can't say thank you enough!!! 

WE LOVE YOU!

the paint the movement team

The week was a HUGE success and more words will follow to explain the experience. But for now let the pictures do the talking...

A mix of the rotation activities

 

 

Closing Remarks and a group picture with all the teachers who were part of the training

 

The progression of the mural over the past week

 

 

 Chapwa!

Time is flying by...

All of your hand prints made it and look amazing!

Day Two including some painting fun. Stevie is making a giant paint by number for the pupils to fill in Thursday. The small sections will allow more students to be involved as well as utilize fine motor skills. She was never without an audience and they seem to approve.

  

 

  

After lunch we exposed all the teachers to the magic of Playdough and minds were blown! We showed them how you can make it yourself, passed it around, and talked about how it could be included in multiple lessons. 

  

Needless to say it was a hit

 

 

Today was the 3rd and final day of the teacher training section of our project. The teachers have been great, kept up with busy days, and learned a lot. We started the day with "The Human Knot" to wake up and start the laughing early.

The day ended with the teachers working with pupils, using the physical therapy room, and learning basic Physical Therapy exercises they can now utilize.

While some teachers were in the Physical Therapy Room, others were exploring fun fine motor skill development activities. They loved the word searches and connect the dots so much, it was hard to move on to the next activity.

 The training was a huge success and we will get to see how they can put some of the things they have learned into action tomorrow. The students will be rotating through different stations. Each station is an artistic activity focusing on either fine motor skills and/or physical therapy. We have the Playdough, Crayons, Games, and Paint ready!!! Hopefully the students are as excited as we are!