Fiona Craig, Eryn Graham-Amodeo, Alexander Lawson and Julia Karp left for Ethiopia on Feb. 17 and returned March 1. They were chaperoned by high school music teacher Katie Hooper and seventh-grade teacher and lower school chairman Brian Ruel.
Last week, the four students gave a presentation on their trip to fellow students, teachers, parents and donors to the trip, sharing Ethiopian food, photos, stories and reflections on what the experience meant to them.
“Ethiopia is the most wondrously loving place I’ve ever visited,” Lawson wrote to his parents from a corrugated tin Internet café in Addis Ababa. “(The children) are the sweetest little boys and girls — very happy, very fun to play with. They study English in school and are impressively good at it, which makes communicating easy.”
In addition to volunteering with the children at AHOPE for two weeks, the students brought donations made by members of The Waldorf School and the greater Saratoga Springs community.
“We arrived with 12 suitcases filled with medical supplies and clothing, and we each had a donated laptop in our carry-on luggage,” Hooper said. “The staff at the orphanage was beyond thrilled when we presented those laptops.”
While immersion trips and study abroad opportunities have always been staple learning experiences at The Waldorf School, the Ethiopia trip adds a new element of service learning and cultural immersion to the students’ education.
“The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs has a thriving exchange program for 10th- and 11th-graders with Waldorf schools in German- and French-speaking countries throughout Europe, and this annual aid trip to Ethiopia is a wonderful and very different travel experience for our students,” school administrator Katherine Scharff said. “Our students enter the adult world after Waldorf with curiosity, compassion and critical thinking. It is our hope that if they also take with them a personal experience of the world’s most vulnerable citizens, they will be well-prepared to make positive change.”
According to Scharff, the goals of the trip are three- fold: to provide a life-changing experience to Waldorf high school students, to share activities and educational opportunities with some of the children in Ethiopia and to develop an ongoing connection between The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs and the children in Ethiopia.
Saratoga Springs residents and Waldorf School parents Emma Dodge Hanson and Jennifer Armstrong established the trip in 2010. Both women have adopted children from Ethiopia and have traveled extensively to Addis Ababa. Continued...See Full Story
“Our own experiences in Ethiopia have made it clear that there is always a need for willing volunteers at the orphanages — to help teach, to offer a lap and a hug, to play and sing, to help untangle a knitting project or kick a soccer ball,” Armstrong said. “The teachers in our school are gifted in working with many ages of children, and by high school our students have had a unique mix of arts, service and practical activities. We think this qualifies them as ideal volunteers at the orphanages.”
In the first three years of the Ethiopia trip, two Waldorf high school students and one chaperone were selected to go each year. Thanks to overwhelming interest by the students, as well as some effective fundraising on their part, this year’s junior class was able to send four students and two chaperones.
The school hopes to expand the trip further in future years to make it an experience shared by the entire junior class.
In the first three years of the Ethiopia trip, two Waldorf high school students and one chaperone were selected to go each year. Thanks to overwhelming interest by the students, as well as some effective fundraising on their part, this year’s junior class was able to send four students and two chaperones.
The school hopes to expand the trip further in future years to make it an experience shared by the entire junior class.
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