Tsunami relief fund aids rebuilding

Nine months after the December 2004 tsunami that devastated South Asia, reconstruction work and other assistance and support from the international trade union community is well under way. With contributions from AFT members, affiliates and others to the union’s tsunami disaster relief fund, the AFT has sent $100,000 to Education International (EI) for relief efforts, and additional contributions of $40,000 each are being sent to Public Services International (PSI) and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Education International, a federation of more than 345 organizations representing teachers and education personnel around the world, is focusing its efforts on Sri Lanka and the Aceh province of Indonesia, the two regions hit hardest by the tsunami. While much remains to be done, EI reports, the process of reconstructing schools has begun.

Both EI and PSI are participating in the Global Unions Tsunami Solidarity project in cooperation with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Global Union Federations to coordinate relief efforts and funding.

Connecting children and families to healthcare coverage

Many Americans still lack access to healthcare coverage. Today, 8.4 million children in the United States are uninsured. One in five Hispanic children and one in seven African-American children are uninsured. Many of these children are eligible for low-cost or free healthcare coverage even if their parents have jobs.

That’s why the AFT has teamed up again with Covering Kids & Families and its annual Back-to-School Campaign. The aim of the campaign is to connect eligible, uninsured children with low-cost and free healthcare coverage available through Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The effort includes outreach and enrollment activities targeted toward eligible families, and a national toll-free number, 877/KIDS-NOW, which parents can use to find out if their children are eligible.
Visit http://www.coveringkidsandfamilies.org/ to order free campaign materials.

Free school supplies for teachers in low- income schools

Educators who find themselves spending hundreds of their own dollars on school supplies for their students will want to know about the SHOPA Kids in Need Foundation. The foundation helps teachers in low-income schools get essential supplies—without having to dig into their own pockets.

Founded in 1995 by the School, Home and Office Products Association (SHOPA), the nonprofit foundation operates resource centers (or “free stores”) for educators in 21 U.S. cities, including Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York,St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
Supplies, which are distributed through a nonprofit national network, are donated by companies that are members of SHOPA. To find out if the SHOPA Kids in Need Foundation is in your city, call 800/854-7467 or visit www.kidsinneed.net.

The foundation also provides K-12 educators with grants they can use to provide learning opportunities for their students. Nearly 200 grants ranging from $100 to $500 are awarded each year. Information on teacher grants for the 2005-06 school year is available at www.shopa.org/shopa_foundation/teacher_programs.php.

Lessons on our nation’s history

The Library of Congress and the Advertising Council have teamed up to encourage young people to learn more about American history. A series of new public service announcements (PSAs) points middle school students to the Library’s colorful and interactive Web site, http://www.loc.gov/, where they will find a wealth of information about our nation’s history. And the television ads, filmed in the style of a horror movie, suggest that learning about history is not scary, but actually can be fun.

The Web site also offers several home-page gateways to digital images of more than 25 million historical items from the Library’s analog collections. The American Memory section of the Web site alone offers more than 10 million digital items in more than 125 thematic collections that include papers of U.S. presidents and papers documenting the women’s suffrage and civil rights movements; Civil War photographs; early films of Thomas Edison; Jazz Age photographs; the first baseball cards and more.

From local students to global citizens

UNICEF has created a new online resource to help teachers engage students as active global citizens. TeachUNICEF.org offers lessons about UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and its efforts on behalf of children worldwide.

“Students and teachers in the U.S. are an essential part of UNICEF’s efforts to advance child rights through health, education, equality and protection,” says Kimberly Penharlow, director of education for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Produced by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the educators’ Web site  has information on the agency’s ongoing relief and recovery efforts in the region devastated by last December’s Indian Ocean tsunami. Teachers can use these Web resources to educate students about the progress of schoolchildren in South Asia and East Africa—the areas where the tsunami did the most damage.