Teachers: Consider a Pen Pal Program for Your Class

If you are a teacher, and looking for an assignment to engage the reading and writing skills of your students, consider starting a snail mail pen pals relationship between your class, and the children of the Camp Ohana Foundation. As an educator, you know the importance of performance and experience as motivational strategies. The idea that another student will be reading and responding to letters written by your students can set a tone for accountability like none they have experienced as of yet. When more than one letter has been exchanged between some of your students and their pen pals, the possibilities for expanding on language and communication skills can present themselves in rapid accumulation.

You will also see opportunities to explore social issues throughout such an exciting class activity. Of course learning about students in another country, particularly students in areas of high need, can be an eye opener regarding the world we are living in. Meanwhile, from the other side, you will be giving children of Western Kenya a meaningful incentive to practice their literacy skills, at a time when far too few of them are being offered any encouragement towards literacy at all.

We at Camp Ohana are on a mission to show the children we work with that there is hope and that they are not alone. Give your own students a chance to reach out and send a message to these children that there are friends who care about them all over the world. Feel free to contact us if you have questions about the pen pal program, or other ways you and your students might be able to get involved with the Camp Ohana Foundation

Amos Balongo

September 14, 2014