WorldLegacy Graduate Stands for Rwandan Children

by | Jul 16, 2015 | Children, Rwanda, SLPprojects, world | 3 comments

Legacy Graduate Stands for Rwandan Children

WorldLegacy graduate Sarah Hipp is the Director of International Programs at Mizero Children of Rwanda Asheville, North Carolina Area. Sarah did the entire WorldLegacy Journey culminating in the NC111. In 2007 Sarah was a volunteer with the Mizero Children’s mission.  The goal of the mission is to raise money for the children in the group and other orphans to build a combined school and orphanage in Rwanda.   “There is a huge need for it. Some of them are homeless, others live with relatives,” Hipp said of the group. “Some of their parents died of HIV/AIDS, which is closely linked because so many women were raped during the genocide and contracted AIDS.” The painful facts of the nation’s 1994 genocide dimmed when the Mizero Children leapt onto the stage, singing of hope and peace and reconciliation. The girls danced with coiled baskets balanced on their heads, and the boys danced with bell-anklets that rang with each stomp. The children wore headbands, fringe and translucent wrap skirts. The performers were between the ages of 12 and 16, Hipp said.

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WorldLegacy graduate Sarah Hipp, a graduate of WorldLegacy’s NC111 Leadership program, has been standing for the people of Rwanda. She came to WorldLegacy with a vision. She has created herself to be effective in following her vision and taking actions consistent with her vision.

In this set of photos, Sarah has gone to meet Denis, the drum maker of Rwanda. Denis is one of the best drum makers in Rwanda and comes from a long line of drum makers for the King of Rwanda. His great-grand father, grandfather and his father all made drums for the King! Now Denis makes drums for the National Dance Troupe that performs for the President!

“Over the last year I have made several trips out to his village in the South to learn about the drums and about his family! I have learned much but most importantly I have learned about the Umuvumu trees! They are the best trees for drums because they are the hardest wood however there are not very many left in Rwanda!

I asked Denis if we could plant some for his grand sons! He said yes! So we planted six trees on his land and I took four more to plant on a friend’s land! All you do is cut of a branch and make a point and put it in the ground! It is an amazing tree with should beauty! It is known for peace and protection and the tradition is that one tree is planted for each family member on their land.”

 

WorldLegacy Graduate Brings Cultural Center to Rwanda

WorldLegacy Graduate Brings Cultural Center to Rwanda WorldLegacy Graduate Brings Cultural Center to Rwanda I am the Rwandan Operations Manager for the Intore Music and Cultural Center in Kigali, Rwanda. This program was started in Dec. 2006 with a team of 4 people (including me) from LEAF International. The goal was to start a music program with a group of orphan children from the Genocide, to bring hope and healing by giving them an outlet of expression. Through a Rwandan Mentor we were able to teach the 20 boys the traditional music, drumming and dance of Rwanda. These boys have been living on the street in a dirt parking lot for 10-15 years! They have experienced much trauma and rejection from their community, family and friends. Last year after one of the boys was shot on the street. We were able to secure housing for the boys through a generous family in the US. We realized at that point that more was needed for these boys to help them become leaders in their community and to help them see hope and possibility in their lives. As a result LEAF International partnered with Playing For Change to be able to create a community center for the Arts in Rwanda. This Intore Music and Cultural Center will be the first of it’s kind in Rwanda. Currently there are no galleries for Art, performance halls, or cultural centers in Rwanda. The creation of this center will allow Rwandans to have a place to express themselves through music and art while also being a place for everyone to learn about Rwanda’s diverse Art culture! At the same time it will create possibility and suitability for the 20 boys we have been working with over the last 4 years. I have been on the ground in Rwanda for about a month now for the scouting trip to find potential partners and land and/or buildings for the center to come to life. In just the few short weeks that I have been here I have had mayors offer land for the project, met with many partners and had the opportunity to film a documentary of the project! Also through our partner with Playing For Change we had the privilege of teaching the boys the lyrics to John Lennon’s song Imagine, (which PFC bought the rights to) and have it recorded! At the same time that these amazing things have been happening, Rwanda has also gone through an election and I was very close to a grenade attack that killed 8 people. It has been amazing to boldly walk the streets in a land where I don’t speak the native language and know that 100% is possible 100% of the time. I have full confidence that this center will be more than I could ever image! I am Sarah Hipp NC111 Legacy Leadership Graduate, I completed the coaching and personal effectiveness curriculum at WorldLegacy in Morrisville, NC. I am an extreme giver We are sitting in the spot where Jean Paul one of the boys was shot and killed by the police last year. It was powerful to hear the story told while sitting on the hard, dusty ground where the boys lived for so long.

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WorldLegacy Project: Prancing Horse

by | Jun 23, 2015 | Animal Domain, Article, Children, Prancing horse

Prancing Horse, Cameron, NC
Prancing Horse provides therapeutic horseback riding programs for special needs children, with a direct focus on those who come from under-privileged environments. This WorldLegacy Leadership project involved major renovations of the facility including updating the sensory riding trail.

Prancing Horse Revitalized

BY SUE SMITHSON: Equestrian Correspondent
Just a few months ago, Prancing Horse director Ronnie Meltzer thought the center for therapeutic riding might have to close. Fundraising was a constant struggle, the office roof was leaking, suitable equine donations were hard to come by, and many of their older horses were lame or otherwise unusable.
“It was bad, I didn’t know what we were going to do there for awhile,” Meltzer said.
For 20 years, Prancing Horse has provided therapeutic riding to hundreds of handicapped, impaired, or challenged children and adults in spring and fall 10-week sessions. The center is located between Vass and Cameron, just past Woodlake.

But thanks to local volunteer Ouida Newell of Carthage and the WorldLegacy, a Raleigh leadership-training center, Prancing Horse recently received a much-needed boost.
The old office trailer was replaced with a new one, used but in great shape. Newell said she started looking around for a new office trailer, and the first person she called had one sitting in the yard.

“We got it for half-price,” Newell said. As a Carthage antique dealer, Newell says she can al-ays “sniff out a bargain.”

The WorldLegacy leadership group, consisting of about 40 people from all over the country taking a three-month course, needed a community project.
They wanted a rural setting, and a project that would benefit children. Only manpower, not personal funds, could be spent, and they wanted to involve others.
The Prancing Horse sensory trail concept was conceived, birthed, and completed within one weekend. The trail winds through trees with chimes, spirals, pinwheels, elves, wooden bridges, and horse height mailboxes with surprises inside.

“It’s all about concepts,” Meltzer explained. “We go under, around and over. We count, we explore. This trail is so perfect.”
A new office and a new sensory trail goes a long way, but add three new instructors and a new horse donation, Lefreda Williams’ fox hunter Mousse, and Prancing Horse is on the rebound.
“We still have to stay on top of the fundraising efforts,” Meltzer said. “But the WorldLegacy group really gave us a shot in the arm.”

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WorldLegacy Builds ESL Lab

by | Feb 20, 2015 | Article, Children, ESL, ESLartcle

Estes Elementary School, Asheville,NC

 

NC71’s Leadership project upfitted an English as a second language mobile unit with computers, a TV, a VCR and software. February 2005.

Community gets involved to help ESL project at Estes

February 17, 2005
By Erin Cox STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE — A few computers, a little floor wax and the kindness of strangers are helping the English as a Second-language program at Estes Elementary School.  About 13 percent of the school’s 900 students don’t speak English fluently. They come from about 20 different countries, but most are native Spanish speakers from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, said Estes Principal Martin Mann.  To help them learn English faster, the school recently began a project that involved people in the community, not just teachers at the school.
The project started with 16 people and three months of adult education training at WorldLegacy, a leadership training company just outside Raleigh. The program required teams to develop and complete a community service workshop.

Anne Belle Peevey, an instructor at Montessori Learning Center who participated in the program, knew that Estes Elementary needed more ESL supplies, and she began a campaign to acquire equipment.

“The ESL program was heavily underfunded, and the students at Estes needed new technology,” Peevey said.

WorldLegacy Team members sought donations from churches and community organizations and got five refurbished computers with monitors, two printers and a new television and videocassette recorder to help get ESL students into regular classes faster.

They raised more than $2,000 in private donations to buy additional ESL software, headphones and classroom supplies. The team washed and waxed the floor of the ESL trailer and rearranged the classroom’s furniture to make room for the new equipment.

“It’s an incredible experience to see what can happen when a group of 16 people comes together and produce an amazing project to create an elevated level of learning for these children,” Peevey said.  This was an extreme makeover project.

Estes takes an integrated-intensive approach to educating ESL students, said Principal Mann. And it usually doesn’t take long for ESL students to pick up English.

“The majority of their time is spent in the regular classrooms,” Mann said.”The best way for them to learn English is to be around their peers.”

Students usually learn “playground” English, or social language skills, in about a year, said ESL teacher Susan Tackett.

But it may take up to 10 years for students to develop a broad and highly developed English vocabulary, Tackett said.

So the technological resources provided by the WorldLegacy team will definitely help accelerate their English skills, she said. Students particularly like using the interactive software and headphones. They can hear an English word, repeat it into the headphones and hear their own voice in English, giving them instant feedback.

“The WorldLegacy group did a spectacular job and did it in a short amount of time,” Tackett said. “They were very focused on their goal. Our resources are so minimal that sometimes we have to get creative and invent them. We would have never gotten the computers and software if the WorldLegacy group hadn’t helped us.”

Reprinted with Permission Asheville Citizen-Times, Asheville, North Carolina

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It Takes a (Safety) Village article

by | Jan 10, 2015 | Article, Children, Family, Safety Village, safetyvillagearticle, Youth

Durham Safe Kids Coalition, Durham, NC

NC42 created an area with miniature homes, schools, hospitals, stop signs and traffic lights to allow the Durham Police Department teach children about guns, traffic and other safety issues. Durham Safety Village. Program for Children. Budget: $24,000. December 2001.

It takes a (safety) village

Author: Anne Blythe; Staff Writer December 10, 2001 Durham — Police have a new place to teach children how to cross a street safely and other valuable life-saving lessons. A 25-person team from the WorldLegacy, a leadership training program in Chapel Hill, spent the past five weeks transforming three Morreene Park tennis courts into the diminutive Durham Safety Village complete with small plywood homes, shops, a hospital, miniature streets, stop signs and traffic lights — just like any Smalltown, USA. “It’s something that has been a labor of love for a lot of people,” Danny Polinsky, 24, said Sunday afternoon before turning over the keys to the village to the Durham Police Department. “This is really our gift from us to the children of the Triangle and the state of North Carolina.” At the village, police will teach youngsters about guns, drugs, traffic and other safety issues. Firefighters will coach them about what to do in case of a fire. “What you see before you today is the culmination of a vision I had about a year and a half ago,” Lt. J.R. Byrd Sr. said. On Sunday afternoon, the leadership team members celebrated the results of their labor with a small ceremony at the new village. Children pedaled along the new routes and hoisted balloons. Byrd plans to develop a Safety Village curriculum soon so classes can be offered in the summer and on school breaks.
Reprinted with Permission of The News &Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina.

It takes a small village to teach child safety

DURHAM — Children can learn all about safety, from how to deal with strangers to gun safety , when the police department dedicates its first children’s Safety Village on Sunday. Safety Village, at Morreene Road Park on Morreene Road near U.S. 15-501 Bypass, teaches 4- and 5-year-old children lessons about playground, bicycle, fire and gun safety. Children also can get pointers about traffic, being a pedestrian, poisons, drugs and what to do when confronted with strangers. The lessons are taught in a miniature village setting, which includes a firehouse, school, mall, residential neighborhood and police station. The village structure was developed by The Legacy Group of Chapel Hill, a leadership training organization that requires its members to perform community service.
The project, initiated more than a year ago, was entirely financed through community and business donations. It is a joint effort of the Durham Police Department, Durham Parks and Recreation Department, Durham Fire Department, City of Durham Traffic Engineering (Sign Shop), Safe Communities Committee, and SAFE KIDS.

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Powe Elementary School WorldLegacy Project

by | Jan 8, 2015 | Article, Children, Powe Elementary School, powearticle

Powe Elementary School

This WorldLegacy Leadership project created a sustainable garden. Students, parents and many others planted many edible plants and trees using gardening methods that did not require watering. Budget: $15,000. November 2003. NC61.

WorldLegacy Project Community spirit taking root

Powe School, neighbors will share new garden

AL CARSON acarson@heraldsun.com
December 8, 2003

They’re growing more than just children at E.K. Powe Elementary School.Sprouting along with the youngsters are pecans, broccoli, cabbage, cherries, figs, apples, blackberries, raspberries and grapes, to name some of the future foodstuffs volunteers have planted in the school’s new “edible garden.”

Volunteers from a leadership training group teamed with a neighborhood group in recent weeks to plant a variety of fruits and vegetables in front of the school, located at 913 Ninth St., for use by the community and the school.

Members of WorldLegacy N.C. 61 leadership team, an outgrowth of a Morrisville organization called the WorldLegacy, called the school out of the blue in late November, saying that a planned community service project had fallen through, and that they wanted to plant a garden at the school, Principal Brandon Patterson said.

“Even more wonderful than that, they were appreciative,” he said. “They kept thanking me for the opportunity. It was really just amazing.”

Community members, educators and students gathered to dedicate the garden in a ceremony last week.

A few days after meeting with the group, which worked in conjunction with the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, volunteers were getting their hands dirty, finishing the work over a three-day weekend.

The garden not only makes the school more attractive to look at, Patterson said, but also will serve an educational purpose.

“Being a school with a science focus, it’s wonderful to have another set of items for kids to learn from to look at the growth cycles, to look at the comparison between this garden without pesticides to one with pesticides,” he said.

The neighborhood association, which plans to maintain the plot using strictly organic methods, says it will encourage local residents to use the garden as well.

People from the neighborhood would be welcome to take home clippings or seeds from the garden to plant at home, Patterson said.

Reprinted from The Herald-Sun, (Durham, NC)

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