adrienne@accesseducation.ca

Metro Prep and High School Unplugged are on the way to Guatemala July 2nd!

2011-05-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

28 Days in Guatemala...

Students from Metro Prep - www.metroprep.com and area Public Schools as well as a student from Baltimore and students from the Atitlan Multicultural Academy are headed to Guatemala.

They will be studying with High School Unplugged and traveling throughout Guatemala.

This year's courses are Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, Grade 11 and Indigenous Peoples in a Global Context, Grade 12.

I am looking forward to this trip!

Tikkun Olam in Guatemala

2011-05-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

May, 2011

I had the amazing opportunity to co-lead a tour to Guatemala with Rabbi Elyse Goldstein of Kolel - the Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning. Along with 7 other women we traveled throughout Guatemala. We trekked through jungle in the Peten, we boated on Lake Atitlan and we zip-lined across canyons with the monkeys and birds in Panajachel.

The tour culminated with a trip to La Union where the participants taught an English class, taught a yoga class to indigenous women and students and painted one of Access Education's new classrooms.

Thanks for a great opportunity!

Markville Secondary School

2011-05-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

April 19, 2011

I spent some great time with the student council at Markville Secondary School in Markham, Ontario!
These kids were progressive, motivated and had great questions. They wanted to know what makes Access Education Guatemala Children's Fund different. We told them that each year we only focus on one or two projects. When you get involved with Access Education - you know exactly where the school is, exactly who the people are that are served and exactly what is being done.

The Opening of Basico in La Union

2011-05-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

On January 20, 2011, the Instituto Basico de La Union opened its doors with fanfare and celebration.
The Mayor, the Director of Education and many other dignitaries, including Access Education board member Claire Merbaum.

Today was truly a blessing! Without Access Education, these kids would have terminated school and would not go on to middle school.

La Union is getting a Middle School (en espanol - Basico)

2010-11-10T23:03:00.000-08:00

Board member, Dr. Ellen Greenblatt and I are in La Union. Yesterday was the first day for students to sign up to go to middle school this coming January. By days end 10 kids were registered. By the end of next week they anticipate 75 more registrations.

Construction is m.oving along on the second floor structure. Thanks to the generosity of all those that attended the fundraiser ----------------we are well on our way!

The Lula Lounge fundraising effort was a resounding success!!!

2010-11-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

The event at Lula on October 28th starring Wallace and the Gromits and Conjunto Lacalu was a resounding success.
Our goal of reaching $20,000.00 was realized and we are able to open the middle school in La Union this January.

Stay tuned and we will post pictures and highlites.

Access Education BENEFIT night - OCTOBER 28TH at the LULA LOUNGE!

2010-09-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

Join all your friends at the Lula Lounge on October 28th (http://www.lula.ca/) !
Order your tickets by going to http://www.accesseducation.ca/ and click on the link under the picture.

Lula is ground zero for Salsa and Access Education presents: Conjunto Lacalu and special guests: Wallace and the Gromits.

Dinner tables can only be booked by reservation by calling Access at: 416 537-9459 or by emailing yours truly at: adrienne@accesseducation.ca

Bring your family, friends and office workers. We are trying to raise $20,000.00 to open a middle school in January in the town of La Union. Get those tickets now!

High School Unplugged

2010-08-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

It's almost that time again - time to return to school.........
My daughter Sally is moving from Toronto New School to Central Technical School while Alana moves off to Trent University and their science program.

If you have children that are high school age and would like to participate in a life-transforming trip that will earn them a credit as well as volunteer hours next summer, please consider our High School Unplugged program.
The trip takes place in Guatemala and will be a Ministry of Education approved credit.
Hablamos Pronto!

For more information call: 416 537-9459.

Coatepeque - The Access Education Project at La Union

2010-07-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

We were meant to be painting a new addition of the school that was built with funds from Access Education. We pulled up to the school on Saturday expecting paint and the principal. They definitely had other ideas.
There were 250 children in uniform and their parents waiting for us in assembly chairs. There was a stage set up and when we walked through the court-yard the applause began. They were there to thank us.
We were treated, for the next two hours, to presentations from all the children. There was marimba dancing, a demonstration by primary children of how the corn is tilled in the fields and a lot of singing.
The Minister of Education spoke and I had a chance to say a few words. I took our kids up on to the stage to show the village that we are all the same when we persevere and when we work together. Our kids served as a testament to change. They were extremely engaged and changed by this display. That day we announced that La Union would now begin offering Basico (middle school) as of January in addition to Primary school. This is a HUGE deal.

Afterwords we did indeed paint the school, played soccer (Mario rocks) and we took a foot tour of La Union and in fact visited relatives.

Photos

2010-07-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

We are all sad to be going home....It was a truly amazing experience.

2010-07-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

I would like to personally thank Ryan, Helen, John Way, Claire Dallies, Ruben Gonzalez, Josue, and Aeshwarya on the home team for making this an incredible experience. AND hats off to the amazing students - Giselle, Myles, Kate, Alana and Jack for bringing everything into focus. They were always in awe. They always had questions. They were always grateful. They were frequently moved.

I feel blessed to have gone down the road with such fine people.

Chichicastenango

2010-07-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today we took another huge metaphysical, existential and historic turn to ChiChi.
Chichicastenango is the centre of the Maya universe. Although the government and temples were and are located in Tikal, Chichi was and is the spiritual centre. This is where the Popal Vuh originated.
Sunday and Thursday are market days and this is the largest market in Guatemala. The Maya people come from hundreds of kilometers around to bring their goods to market.

This is an intense experience. There are two churches at each end of the market. San Tomas y Calvary. San Tomas has historic roots with the Maya and to this day shares the church with the Catholics. The Maya make sacrifices of flowers and corn on the steps of the church and make similar offerings inside. The rectory of the San Tomas church was a place of torture during the civil war.

On Sunday the priest does Mass and quickly turns his back as the Maya people start moving in their offerings.
Between these two churches there are hundreds of vendors selling hand made clothing, pottery, and jewellery to the public.

I hope Kate has kept us up to date....

2010-07-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

We have had a spectacular time. I would be adding exclamation points if they were findable on this latin keyboard. We spent two amazing days on Lake Atitlan at Casa del Mundo near Panajachel. We all zip-lined hundreds of feet above the canopy at the Atitlan Nature Reserve. A twenty minute boat ride took us to a pristine point on the lake that is only accessible by water. There are several stories of stairs and rooms dotting the mountainside. The view of the three volcanoes and the lake is unspeakably beautiful. While the kids were trapped in classes I was able to jump on a boat and beat it back to the mainland where I toured the Atitlan Multicultural Academy with Vice Principal, Reuban Gonzalez. This was followed by lunch and a cerveza.

Study in Antigua

2010-07-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

12 Julio, 2010
Today our kids attended lectures, studied and wrote tests again from morning until 6:00 P.M (with breaks of course).
Professor Claire Dallies, Helen Mills and Ryan Burwell gave an interdisciplinary slide presentation and inspired many questions from the group.
Tomorrow we will travel to Guatemala City to the garbage dump. The people from Camino Seguro (Safe Passages) will lead our class on a tour of the largest dump in the Americas and explain how many generations of Guatemalans are born, raised and ultimately die, here, at their home at the dump. The city is dependent on the people of the dump.
Camino Seguro's mission statement is to combat poverty through education.The families of Safe Passage children scavenge through the Guatemala City Dump for items to resell. The organization works to enroll these children in the public schools.
This will be an emotional day for our kids. It is truly a devastating existence. I leave this post with a photo of the Mayan priest who led us in prayer at a temple cave in Chisec. It was a prayer of healing that has been recited for over two thousand years.
Goodnight.

2010-07-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

11 Julio, 2010

We are busy studying intensively in Antigua. We have almost the entire hotel to ourselves. While Giselle and Jack research their essay topics.....I am dreaming about caves.

Wow ........what an amazing several days........I have lost count

2010-07-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

We have been SO busy and SO inspired by what we have done, seen, and experienced óff the grid´for the last several days.
The Temples at Tikal were gasp worthy and students at the top of Temple One (gigantic) got a taste of what it was like to be a Mayan Priest at the top of a temple when the skies opened (as in really opened).
The trip to the indigenous community near the town of Chisec was so inspiring. These Maya people refused to flee during the civil war. The town of Chisec was virtually wiped out by the soldiers and thousands of Maya people were murdered. This brave group of 23 families stayed on their land and have retained the land. Others who ran away had their land confiscated. The people of this community, Candelaria, found ancient caves on their property including Mayan temples. We walked the land for hours and toured caves on foot and tubed through the caves with flashlights. The day at Candelaria culminated in a Maya ceremony with a priest and priestess who led us in procession through a field of unspeakable beauty to the ceremonial cave where blessings were bestowed in the Q´quiche language and the kids were included in prayer to the four directions. It was so moving to see our children walk for half an hour without speaking a word and to see the emotion on their faces. I will have pictures of this day soon.

I am behind in my blogs because we are frequently busy and not in front of computers. YAY.

Quiriguá - A National Treasure - six hours along the road from Antigua!

2010-07-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

Quiriguá (Spanish pronunciation: [kiɾiˈɣwa]) is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the department of Izabal in south-eastern Guatemala. It is a medium-sized site covering approximately 3 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) along the lower Motagua River,[2] with the ceremonial center about 1 km (0.6 mi) from the north bank.[3] During the Maya Classic Period (AD 200–900), Quiriguá was situated at the juncture of several important trade routes. The site was occupied by 200, construction on the acropolis had begun by about 550, and an explosion of grander construction started in the 8th century. All construction had halted by about 850, except for a brief period of reoccupation in the Early Postclassic (c. 900 – c. 1200). Quiriguá shares its architectural and sculptural styles with the nearby Classic Period city of Copán, with whose history it is closely entwined.[4] (Wikipedia).

This was a day...............in total we spent 8 hours in the bus traveling to the Peten area of Guatemala.
After 6 hours we came to Quirigua and our first, up-front, jungle field trip. It was probably about 39 C and with the humidity, it felt like 49C.

Our students enjoyed their box lunch and thorough tour of the ruins before heading off to Tikal for dinner and check in at the Camino Real hotel. At the hotel they were happy to change into swim suits and dive into the pool.

Tomorrow we are all looking forward to Parque Arqueologico Tikal for a full day at the pyramids and the centre of the Mayan universe.

Colonialism and lost luggage!

2010-07-03T17:44:00.001-07:00

We had an incredible day today! We started the day with a walking tour of Antigua with Professor Way. The kids learned about colonialism, the German Peasant Wars, mercantilism, and drew a metaphysical and at times physical line from the conquest to the genocide of the Maya people during the 1980's and early 1990's. During lunch the sky opened with the daily deluge and I appropriately left for the airport to find the missing luggage myself.

I did indeed find the 12 missing bags and somehow managed to stuff them into a very small Renault. There was not room for a hamster.....

The kids spent the afternoon in class time and at this hour they are just finishing their studies.

We will have dinner and an early night as tomorrow is the long bus ride to the Peten (8 hours).

They are having a great time - especially now that they have clean clothes.

Hopefully Kate will have some pictures or posting on her blog soon: Kate-in-Guatemala.blogspot.com

Giselle Wenban is doing a great job running the video camera. We will try to upload to youtube perhaps.

Hablamos pronto!

Adriana

We are here. Having a blast in Antigua

2010-07-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

Most students and teachers were up at 3:00 A.M today in preperation for a 6:00 A.M departure from Pearson International Airport. After a half hour delay in departure we had clear skies on our flight to Houston......or so we thought........

After circling Waco, Texas for 45 minutes the Captain calmly informed us that we were flying above a level five electrical storm courtesy of Hurricane Alex. He told us we couldn't land in Houston or the plane would be "torn apart." He told us we needed gas. We diverted to a College Station airfield to wait out the storm and of course, get gas. Some 45 minutes later we headed off to Houston where we discovered the airport had been open for some time and that our plane had departed.

After having a chat with some Continental personnel I was able to secure 10 seats on the next flight (which was fully booked) AND get upgraded to business class. Our luggage didn't make it but we had a great day.

Thanks to the Atitlan Multicultural Academy, Professor John Way and Vice-Principal Rubin Gonzalez for being there for us and making our first day a memorable one.

Ablamos pronto

Adrienne

Almost ready to go.....

2010-06-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Students and teachers from the Toronto New School http://www.torontonewschool.com/ are pumped!!!
We have three days to go of intense study at school before departing on our life transforming expedition to Guatemala!
We will link up with teachers and Professor John T. Way from the Atitlan Multicultural Academy http://www.ama.edu.gt/ and wind our way through the Peten, Alta Vera Paz, Lake Atitlan and finally - Coatepeque (La Union) where we will do service work with the kids at Access Education's School.
http://www.accesseducation.ca/

Our courses in world politics, human bio and especially environmental science will put us face to face with flora, fauna and fantastic animals.. Hey....while you're at it - check out my friend Nathan Richer's fantastic animal facts site: http://wild-facts.com/

Stay tuned and stay tuned to student Kate's blog at : kate-in-guatemala.blogspot.com

Hasta Pronto !!!

Toronto New School takes it on the road to Guatemala!!!

2010-06-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

The Toronto New School takes it on the road to Guatemala with Access Education and the Atitlan Multicultural Academy!
Students from the Toronto New School (http://www.torontonewschool.com/) will be traveling to Guatemala in a matter of weeks to study: Environmental Science, Grade 12 Biology and World Issues!!!

These credit courses will be taught in the context of a cross country tour led by teachers from TNS as well as the Atitlan Multicultural Academy under the auspices of Dr. John T. Way. http://www.ama.edu.gt/
We are also fortunate to have Helen Mills of the Lost Rivers Project as a facilitator.

We will conclude the tour in La Union, Coatepeque, Guatemala at the school supported by Access Education Guatemalan Children's Fund. The addition to the school is complete and ready for TNS students to paint! Stay tuned throughout our journey!

2009-11-27T20:45:00.003-08:00

2009-11-22T21:22:00.001-08:00

2009-11-22T21:13:00.001-08:00

November 3, 2009 Coatepeque or bust....

2009-11-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

We arrived yesterday at noon after leaving Toronto at 6:00 AM.
Although the rainy season is "over" it clearly had a mind of its own. The city was in the middle of a torrential downpour and we were told it would go on all week. After picking up the rental car and leaving the city at 2:00 we drove northwest toward Coatepeque which is normally a three hour drive.
Michael sat up front and gave me steady encouragement as we drove through washed out roads and kept an eye out for landslides.
My daughter Sally slept like a kitten on the back seat of our massive diesel slurping Nissan Patrol.
We arrived at 8:00 PM and were warmly greeted by the staff at the Hotel Virginia who served up their famous chicken burgers and cold Gallo Beer (not Sally).

Today we hit the ground running and Michael Popa-Ola, friend, co-worker and soccer star extraordinaire did soccer clinics with the boys at the school. School is out for the summer break in La Union as it is with the whole country.
The girls were encouraged to join in but politely declined in favour of ping-pong. We were happy to bring ping pong paraphernalia with us as well as new soccer balls.

The construction is moving at a clip. We now have a total of three finished classrooms and one more on the way! I was amazed at how quickly things move in La Union.

We are on track for the opening of the middle school as well as the high school for next year!

Meanwhile, I have received an email from Professor John Cherry - an engineer and water expert who is at the University of Toronto. He wants to solve the water problem in La Union and has volunteered to take this on. He has also found other people in Guatemala who are working on similar problems! Way to go John!

Sally is doing four hours of high school work a day while on this trip and she is doing a stellar job of combining adventure with work!

Trip Postponed ----H1N1 Strikes

2009-10-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I should be on a plane in a few hours but......I have H1N1 and will be sidelined for a few more days. If all works out I should be back on track on November 2nd....stay tuned.

Trip to Guatemala on Wednesday, October 28th

2009-10-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

I will be going to La Union, Guatemala on Wednesday, October 28th. Michael Popo Ola, soccer player extraordinaire will be coming along to give two soccer clinics to children at the school.

I will be meeting with the children, the principal - Cora Castillo and the Rotarian administrator of our project - Edna de Pena.
We will view the on-going construction of the school space and review this years numbers for admission to the school.

We are very excited that we will arrive just in time for the grade six graduation.
We will strongly encourage these kids to go on to middle school "Basico" and hopefully we will be able to offer Basico within the village itself by next year.

I personally have sponsored a young woman through High School - Wendy Carina Sales. She will graduate on October 30th with the highest grade in the school.

Felicitaciones to Wendy and her family!!! Next year she is off to University. She will be the only person in the history of her family to go to school beyond grade six. She will be the only person in her village that has ever attended University.

Canadian Jewish News article on Access Education

2009-10-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17711&Itemid=86

2009-09-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

Andy Barrie hosts Access Education founder Adrienne Rosen on Metro Morning

http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/toronto/ondemand/audio/aug31gtm_TOR.wma

Helping With Education (runs 5:16)

2009-09-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

Helping With Education (runs 5:16)

CBC Toronto | Programs | Metro Morning | Archives

2009-09-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

CBC Toronto Programs Metro Morning Archives: "Adrienne"