The story begins with a curriculum project titled “Keeping the Circle Strong” in 2004. This project challenged students at Fred Seymour Elementary School in Calgary to think about how human beings around the world are connected.
Shortly after the project began the Asian Tsunami hit in December of that year. Moved by what occurred, the students began to raise money for the victims of the devastating tsunami that struck the region. This fundraising ensured that several families were able to acquire boats to restart their livelihood of fishing and to be come self sustainable again.
The success of this initial project motivated the students to expand their work to similar projects. When a student’s parent came forward with a song that a friend and he had composed, along with the name of an orphanage in Kenya that required assistance, the idea to produce a CD with the help of the children from Kenya was born. Students started to write back and forth to the young children in the orphanage in Litein Kenya and letters started to flow back and forth.
As the realization came to the Canadian children of how little the Kenyan children had, they began a fundraising drive to raise funds for clothes, school supplies and building maintenance. They then recorded a song “Love Will” with their Kenyan counterparts and asked their Kenyan friends to send them their songs which were eventually packaged onto a CD.
The production of the CD was undertaken by the grades one and two student teams and the grade four and five student teams developed a presentation that was to be delivered to corporate boardrooms in downtown Calgary. This in concert with other fundraising events allowed the group to raise $50,000 by late spring of 2006.
It was then that the decision came for a group of teachers, students and parents to go to Africa where they could connect with the young people from the orphanage and ensure the needed supplies went where they should.
The majority of this trip has been captured in a documentary by filmmaker Matt Palmer called Letters from Litein. For a longer trailer of the documentary click the following link, Letters from Litein Trailer.
Many lives have been changed,great bonds have been made and many dreams have come true in what began as a small circle,Litein is a better place now.Join the circle,there is a spot for you!
I hear you Giddy, keep the circle stronger and stronger.