Hewlett-Packard Sister Schools Seed Grant Projects

PURPOSE
Sister Cities International, in collaboration with Hewlett Packard, is initiating the Sister Cities Sister Schools Program to help develop tomorrow's global leaders.  Through sister school partnerships, this program emphasizes the role of schools in increasing international knowledge and cross-cultural understanding of students around the world, as well as helping them to become informed and concerned citizen diplomats.

Four sister city partnerships receive a $5000 Hewlett-Packard Seed Grant to start a Sister Cities/Sister School program.  Funded partnerships are required to match 100 percent of this grant with cash or in-kind contributions.  In addition to the grant, each of the eight participating communities will receive a $1,200 scholarship to fund two students' attendance at the International Youth Summit on Global Citizenship at the Sister Cities International 50th Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C., scheduled for July 11-15, 2006. 
EXPECTATIONS
This seed grant is intended to promote consistent and sustained interaction between U.S. and international schools through activities that focus on the following four goals:
The following eight communities have been selected as recipients of the Hewlett-Packard Sister Cities/ Sister Schools Seed Grant: 

1. San Diego, California and Jalalabad, Afghanistan Sister Cities
Over 1,200 students from grades 2-5 at Doyle Elementary School in San Diego, California and Najmul Jahad Rotary School in Jalalabad, Afghanistan will intensify their sister schools bonds through a program of presentations, pedagogy, interaction, writing, webquests, and service.  Content and focus will be the students presenting themselves as ambassadors of their schools and their communities' global citizens and leaders in training. Grants funds will ensure one digital camera and one projector (for PowerPoint presentations and videos) to each participating school.  Students will represent first their classrooms and then their communities in class letters and picturebooks, one of which will be exchanged each semester of the 2006 academic year.  The partner culture will be investigated - and letters and picturebooks received will be translated - via online webquests.  Each school will prepare a PowerPoint presentation on its partner culture to circulate through its classrooms and to send to its partner school.  Rolling bulletin boards will circulate information to each classroom throughout the year.  Finally, each school will reach out to the other with a gift - a penny drive toward school supplies from Doyle and students' artwork from Najmul Jahad.

2. Sebastopol, California and Chyhyryn, Ukraine

Through this project, Sebastopol World Friends and friends of Chyhyryn will build on partnerships to create groups of young leaders who understand both the opportunities and the responsibilities of global citizenship in the twenty-first century.  Schools can play a key role in this adjustment in both communities' by providing opportunities for creative learning and expanding possibilities for young people to take a leadership role in the community.  Employing computers and a host of computer tools, including scanners, internet, email, websites, digital cameras and digital projectors, this project utilizes technologies in creative ways to expand teaching methods.  Ten students from each city will use internet research to study global citizenship and Fair Trade.  They will then utilize modern technology to create a collaborative position paper in both languages, parallel websites, and PowerPoint presentations in each language.  Sharing their learning with each community, they will recruit people in Chyhyryn to sell their products to marketing organizations to make those products available in Sonoma County. 
3. Rice Lake, Wisconsin and Zamberk, Czech Republic

These sister schools will engage in a number of collaborative team-building, interactive activities, using PCs or larger format IPV technology.  Student will help plan and conduct "Partners for Tomorrow: Youth for Global Citizenship Summit", a simultaneous conference in both Rice Lake and Zamberk, with constant interaction and communication between the conferences via wall sized-screens and a direct video linkage. Both conferences will produce a "Community Action Plan for Global Citizenship," which will be incorporated into social studies classes in both cities. After the summit, students will participate in smaller informational exchanges, involving a video interview with their respective mayor as well as arts performances. The updating of technology of both schools is essential not only to facilitate this exchange, but to upgrade their overall education. Student involvement is fundamental to this exchange, with students involved in planning, organizing, reporting, and coordinating many aspects of this program.

4. Cambridge, Massachusetts and Yerevan, Armenia

Two high schools in Cambridge and a secondary school in Yerevan will engage in a model United Nations debate regarding water access in Africa. This debate will serve multiple purposes. Not only will both populations become educated about access to the Nile and the importance of clean water, they will also learn about leadership, conflict resolution and develop negotiation skills. Just as significant, the Armenian students will represent the powerful nations in the debate, while the American students will represent nations denied access to the Nile - illustrating the difference in perspective relative to national power. This debate will greatly increase global awareness and youth empowerment. Most preparation, the debate itself and post-debate conversations, will be conducted via email and chat room discussions. Students from Cambridge and Yerevan will also employ local experts to heighten the level of debate while simultaneously becoming more involved in their own communities. The finished product of this project will be a website as well as a hard copy presentation of the debate and its outcomes, in addition to exhibits in all involved high schools which will be shown to the local community.