This weekend is the Green Living Show in Toronto. With thousands of amazing eco-products and services under one roof, you can surely learn something new. What’s even better is that they are having a youth day on Friday, April 12, 2013, featuring:

12:15 P.M. – 1:30 P.M.
E-Waste Recycling School Challenge and Smart School Technology
With Philippe Lozier, Director Business Solution, Samsung Canada.

12:15 P.M. – 1:30 P.M.
The Power of We: Overcoming Obstacles to Make a Difference
Keynote speaker Spencer West from Me to We.
Join us as Spencer shares the struggles he overcame after losing his legs at the age of five. Last year, when Kenya experienced its worst drought in 60 years, Spencer decided to give back in his own unique way – by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. His extraordinary feat attracted worldwide media attention, including CTV, CBS, the Telegraph, People Magazine and the BBC. With the world watching, Spencer successfully reached the summit of Kilimanjaro, raising over $500,000 (and counting!) to bring sustainable clean water projects in communities affected by the drought. Once again, he had redefined possible. Presented by Me to We and Free The Children.

And many more! Click here for the Schedule of the Events on the Main Stage.

AND HERE’S THE BEST PART!
If you join STELLAA’s e-newsletter, not only will you receive news, events, and motivational stories about STELLAA’s work, you’ll also get free entry. We’re mailing out FREE tickets to the Toronto Green Living Show to all of our members already, and will email to all new members every day this weekend so be sure to join our mailing list below:

Subscribe to our newsletter

And don’t forget to share this post so that your friends and family can join in too!

If you think about today’s society and how much we actually really on technology and the coding that makes it work, you really have to ask yourself, can I agree with Steve Jobs when he said:

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer…because it teaches you how to think.”

So when I hand my toddler an iPhone that introduces her to colours, numbers, shapes, letters, and sounds (not to mention, distracts her for a minute to allow me to get something done), I don’t feel so guilty because I know that this technology is teaching her something and developing her fine motor skills. This is probably why so many kids today are more skilled at using computers than their parents. It’s a bit like having magical powers when you can have an idea and code it to come to life…and what kid (young or old) doesn’t want that? The introduction to computers and technology at an early age in school may not be such a bad idea! After all, Gates and Zuckerburg have been pretty successful with their ideas!!

The impact that technology has on our daily lives now is incredible and so, we need to think what impact an early introduction to computer coding will have on the youth of tomorrow. It could be like learning math or English. The co-founder of GirlDevelopIt.org, Vanessa Hurst, says that if she knew that “software is really about humanity…that it’s really about helping people by using computer technology, it would have changed [her] outlook a lot earlier.” So many incredible things are happening now around the world, so many people are coming together and connecting to help others, because people like Zuckerburg and Dorsey had an idea and developed the code to open the technology to billions of people. As a write this blog, I know that it is the code behind it and social media that has connected you to the words that are written.

Nonetheless, the reality is that there are over 796 million people in the world that are illiterate and living in poverty. Teaching kids in the developed world to code could be a great step in the right direction. And mobile technology is helping literacy development in some developing countries that are “book-poor, mobile rich”.(Read more UNESCO Mobile Learning Week) But the 796 million people that can’t read and write will need books to learn to read and write before they can read and write code.

What’s your opinion? How much computer technology should be taught in elementary and secondary schools? Should computer coding be made part of the curriculum?

This is a great Infographic from TvoParents.com!

The first visit was Royal Nursery, Primary and Secondary School located in the rural village of Nara, Enugu, Nigeria. The teachers and students were over-whelmed with joy and excitement when we delivered the donation of over 1000 books to support the growing school of 516 students. Just see for yourself! (Pictures below)

The Senior Students are unloading the donation of books

Over 600 nursery books, primary story books, chapter books, and educational books were donated by STELLAA to the Royal Nursery, Primary & Secondary School in Nara, Enugu.

The Founders of STELLAA, distributing the books to the students to inspire the joy of reading and a sense of ownership!

I’d like to start off with thanking the volunteers that help to do the important work that STELLAA stands for! This year we’ve welcomed 2 new volunteers onto our team:

Carrie MacMillan: our new Social Media Coordinator

and

Gigo Elmoselhi: our Graphic Design Coordinator

Sadly, we said good-bye to Florence McCambridge, who served as our Social Media Coordinator for a couple of years! Thanks for all the time and effort that you put into STELLAA! Your work did not go unnoticed!

Next, I’d like to thank our Board of Directors who continuously offer support and assistance!

Then, we have all the authors and writers who contributed to our Blog throughout the year…thank you for such interesting, inspirational and motivational content! We look forward to more great writing! (For links to all the Author Guest Posts and info visit: stellaa.org/authors.html

We can’t forget about our in-kind sponsors that continuously support our literacy and education efforts by making our work easier and operating expenses much lower through their donations! A special thanks goes out to Media Marksmen for their printing sponsorship!

And finally, on behalf of the STELLAA Board and Volunteers, we’d like to thank all of the STELLAA fans and supporters that have donated books, money and resources! Your support motivates us to do even more and allows us to continue to bring literacy and education to the people of sub-Saharan Africa!

Reduce, reuse, recycle – it can be a useful motto.

After all, the blog criteria emphasized that my post did not have to be about Africa. And anyways, what do I know about Africa and illiteracy?
Fortunately, my apathy struck me as lame before I got too far with my recycling project.
I should know something about Africa and literacy. I teach full-time at the College of the Rockies and an increasing number of our students are international, mostly from Asian countries, but I do have at least a few African students every year. On the first day of class this semester, a young man leapt from his seat to draw a map that would help me and the rest of the class locate his home country. “You will not know it,” he said with a smile. “Nobody does! It’s called and Eritrea, and it’s right here.” He pointed his dry erase marker at Eastern Africa between Ethiopia and Sudan. I nodded as I wondered how I might get him to sit down so I could proceed with my crucial lesson on the difference between it’s and its.

Adem speaks fondly of his country whenever he gets a chance, though he insists he is lucky to have left. He’s keen to talk about Eritrea – its customs, its politics, its challenges – and seems to take pleasure in educating me and his fellow English 100 students. However, I have 125 students per semester. I have two young children. I have a busy publishing career. I have an exhausting commute. I have students from all over the world, and … whatever … I’m tired! I do not have time to learn about everyone’s hometown. With the semester approaching its end, I had not, I am ashamed to say, taken Adem’s enthusiasm as an invitation to learn more about his part of the world.
This STELLA blog assignment offered just the chance.
Adem is an intelligent young man, who works hard and excels in my college class. He is articulate and very well-informed about world politics. If I took time to think about his background at all, I would have assumed that he came from a well-educated family.
However, once I made some space to talk with Adem, I learned that approximately eighty percent of Eritrea’s population is illiterate. Adem is the first one in his family to graduate from high school. Very few of his family members have made it beyond grade five. His father cannot read English, and his mother cannot read at all.
Adem is the only one of his siblings to have left Eritrea. His sister married in grade eight, which he tells me was the best decision for her. The family supported her marriage because it kept her out of the military. Adem hoped to bring his brother to Canada, but the political situation in Eritrea has worsened. Escape is now impossible. The brother will be forced into military service.
Eritrea is a country with many challenges. How, I asked him, would literacy improve things? Clearly, illiteracy is not this country’s most serious problem.

This week, (being that it’s World Kindness Week) the warm feeling that you get when you do something for someone for nothing in return, can continue. A great way to inspire kids and adults alike to be kind, is by throwing a kindness party.

For the Kids:

There are many great (and free) resources online that you can use to at home and in the classroom:

Check out these free printable Good Deed Cards from Eighteen25. Kids get excited whenever they do something good and these cards help keep them motivated to continue to do good, and eventually earning a treat! These are great to use at home, with your teammates, and even in the classroom.

The Random Acts of Kindness organization has some really great resources for use in the classroom to inspire kindness–from lesson plans to arts and crafts…they have it all. Be sure to check it out by clicking here.

Also, be sure to check out The Top Five Classroom Activities to Promote Kindness.

Another great idea to do at home or in the classroom is to implement a Kindness Bulletin Board, like the one that you see above by Lemontreecreations.blogspot.ca.

The bucket filling concept is something that is ongoing throughout the year and my students always love it! At the beginning of the year we talk a lot about what it means to be good friends to each other. We always read a book entitled, How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids
and the students learn about their invisible bucket. We talk about filling other people’s buckets by saying and doing nice things for them and we also talk about how sometimes we can be bucket dippers. When we dip into other’s buckets it hurts their feelings and it makes us feel bad about ourselves too. The entire year this is something that can be revisited and the students are reminded how important it is for them to be kind to one another. This is a simple way we display the buckets in our classroom and ensure that it is a focus throughout the school year.

For the Big Kids (Adults)

As a parent I know that leading by example is the best form of teaching, whether it’s teaching kids or inspiring others. A Kindness Party is a great way to do just that! There are a couple ways that you can host a Kindness Party:

• Host a virtual kindness party for your Facebook and Twitter friends and followers and invite everyone you know on the social media networks to post their good deeds of the day. It’ll inspire others to do the same. For more information, check out how this family turned their loss into a day of inspiration.

• To celebrate a birthday or anniversary, host a “# Acts of Kindness” party. You can make it a surprise for your friends like this teenager that celebrated her Sweet 16 or invite your friends to take the day and do some Random Acts of Kindness around your community. It’s great to share them on your personal blog and social media channels. You can also share your experience through our Random Words of Inspiration to inspire others to do the same and to believe in hope.

“Kindness has the power to transform”

In celebration of World Kindness Day and World Kindness Week, we’re hosting a give-away. Be sure to enter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

To encourage and inspire you, and connect you with communities in sub-Saharan Africa, STELLAA offers a give-back program that allows you to use your words to inspire change. Fir more info and ways you can submit your #RandomWordsofInspiration, click here.

Here are some more kindness ideas that you can do today and everyday:

~Share inspirational quotes–your words and/or the sharing of inspirational quotes can change someone’s day

~Bake some treats and make some thank you cards for your local librarian and/or firestation.

~Smile at everyone you see and express greetings of warm wished

~Read a story to kids at your local book store

~Write a letter to an old friend and mail it…the old fashioned way!

~Open the door for someone

~Deliber balloons, flowers and/or stuffed animals to hospital patients

Share your ideas below and inspire others to be kind!

We’re being kind too! We’re giving away “The World Needs Your Kid” by C. Kielburger, co-founder of Free the Children. Enter below and dont’t forget to be kind and share with your friends and family.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I look back now and realized that I didn’t come to this conclusion over night, or on my own. I was told this by teachers and society at large and shame on me, I listened. Then, at the age of twenty-one, I decided to go and do missionary work for my church. For eighteen months, I learned how to study and help other people. This experience opened my eyes to a lot of things. Most importantly of all, I learned with hard work, I could accomplish anything I wanted.

When I returned home, I applied to several colleges. They declined with stupendous speed and probably laughed while they were doing it. I had one school advisor tell me I would never be good enough for their college.(BYU cough, cough)

I faced a fork in the road. I could cave or meet the challenge head on.  I put on my battle armor and went back to Jr. College. For two and half years, I did very little other than study. It was a full time love affair with learning.  Now married, I reapplied to Brigham Young University where my husband was working on his own degree.  To my total astonishment, I got in and eventually graduated with a 3.8 GPA in the field of Psychology.

I tell you this story because the cold hard truth is that giving someone the tools to succeed may not be enough. You can put a hammer in someone’s hand, but without training, that tool is useless to him or her. As a kid, I had a decent school, supportive parents, and plenty of books to read. Yet I did not thrive educationally speaking. Why?

I believe it was many people’s fault including my own, but through this experience, I’ve learned how valuable a person’s perception of their own abilities can be.

Once when my son was four, we were riding in the car with his brand new preschool teacher. She said to him, “I’ll bet you’re going to be the smartest kid in class,” He turned to face her, eyes wide open, big smile and said, “Yes I am,”  He wasn’t being vain, he was untainted by criticism  and belittlement of the world. He believed he would succeed and then we gave him the tools and he was successful, “one of the smartest kids in class”.

To improve education anywhere in the world, we must find a way to give both the tools to learn, and through small incremental accomplishment, the belief that that a student can and will achieve. This takes personal vested interest and precious time on the part of whoever is helping a student of any age or circumstance. In time, I believe said student will take off on their own, learning for the thrill of learning, believing they have no limits and finally, becoming a more amazing version of themselves. Then, they can go out and help other people.  Imagine…if this happens often enough, the affect on society will be profound!

Well, there it is. I’ve confessed my vulnerabilities and put in my two cents. Now what I’d really like to know, is what do you think? Do you think self- perception matters? Leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Find out more about Angela Carling on our Featured Authors page

“Okay, but just this one.”

When I read it, my heart swelled. I was going to do what so many other compassionate people had chosen to do during my shifts. I was going to be one of them.

After I had completed the paperwork, I took my picture of Tatiana with me to the food court. I sat there looking at her, wishing the best for her, and thinking how cool it was to be able to feel connected to one little person I had never met. And after that, I felt the tears in my eyes. My heart felt better than it ever had from anything I had ever received or bought, ever. And I realized then that it must be true what they say: that it really is better to give than receive. That this little girl had shown me that sometime it’s necessary to just forget about our “to do” list, about ourselves, and just put forth the intention of helping someone else. That as cheesy as it has become to say, that really is that the most important thing of all.
I put the picture back in my pocket and went back to finish my shift. Though the job with World Vision was not really suited to me, I ended my time there knowing that it had held an important purpose in my life. It had helped me to break down my own protective barrier that I had built around myself—a barrier which hopefully would stay down for a long time.

Allison Baggio is the author of Girl in Shades: A Novel
and In the Body
from ECW Press. She lives in Whitby, Ontario with her husband and two children and can be found online at allisonbaggio.com.