Global Kid Connect

An exchange between youth in Colorado and youth in Pakistan

Global Kid Connect facilitates a dialogue of cultural exchange between students in Pakistan and students in the Roaring Fork Valley (with hopes to expand in years to come to other US cities).  We initiated this program in 2010 and were very fortunate  to have had the support of Roaring Fork Leadership the first two years during its launch and trial.  In the first year, the project (formerly named Cyber Peace Project) connected two classrooms in Colorado with two classrooms at MDF schools in Pakistan. The children had so much fun using a blog to share photos, ask one another questions, posting and viewing pictures and drawings they made for each other. Curriculum segments include themes about family, school, leadership, peace, culture, and geography.  A new team of committed individuals dedicated to growing this program helped expand in its second year to three classrooms in the US and three in Pakistan. This year we have six classrooms in the US and six in Pakistan participating.  We are now partnering with Citizens Archive of Pakistan and their program, Exchange for Change, in order to work with youth that are in higher grade levels than the MDF primary schools.

We are excited to share that the students that have participated in this program to-date have testified that their experience participating has revolutionized how they view the people and host country of their pen pals.  many have gone on to keep in touch independently with their assigned pen pals.  We have also had a female student in Pakistan that attributes her ongoing ability to attend a MDF school to the relationship she had with a classmate in Aspen.  Her father pulled her from school and despite the many attempts by the teachers to convince him to allow his daughters to continue their studies, it wasn’t until the Project Manager showed him a letter from his eldest daughter’s pen pal.  He was so moved that someone that lived so far away was so interested and supportive of his daughter’s activities that he was compelled to re-instate her and her younger sister.  The power of understanding, compassion and empathy must start somewhere!

If you or anyone you know is interested in initiating an exchange or implementing curriculum that helps students in the U.S. learn about Pakistan please contact us at info@marshalldirectfund.org.  See  video about the program below.  Feel free to listen to a radio segment about GKC by Executive Director and Program Director here.

Sopris Elementary student, and previous participant of the Global Kid Connect program had an opportunity to do a special project and due to her exposure learning about Pakistan, she was inspired to select historical figure Benazir Bhutto:

Another student at Sopris Elementary created this presentation to show her peers what she had learned about Pakistan: Maddie’s presentation