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Ellie Hanrahan and Caroline Cory, BHS Seniors, Help Third Graders Make New Friends in Tanzania

May 21, 2014:  For the past few summers, Bronxville High School seniors Ellie Hanrahan and Caroline Cory have travelled to a nonprofit orphanage in Tanzania called The Janada L. Batchelor Foundation for Children (JBFC). This is part of a Bronxville School program that guidance counselor Jim Agnello oversees. JBFC is a safe home to 43 orphaned girls and provides education to these orphaned girls as well as over 200 day students from the surrounding villages.

During their stay in Tanzania, Ellie and Caroline taught classes at the JBFC school, worked on the farm on campus that helps sustain the school and orphanage, and, most important, spent a lot of quality time with the children.

"JBFC has played such an important role in our lives," said Ellie, "that we wanted to share what we have learned and seen with children in The Bronxville School." Ellie and Caroline have done this by visiting Judy Visoky's and Pam Kohlhoff's third-grade classrooms about once a month. During their visits, they talk about the lifestyle and culture of JBFC and Tanzania. For example, they brought samplings of cornmeal for the children to taste and they worked on geography and map reading.

Ellie and Caroline also set up a pen-pal program between these Bronxville School third graders and girls at the orphanage. Every few months, the Bronxville children receive letters from their pen pals and in turn write back. This has been a wonderful experience for the third graders, who look forward to their letters and have made new friends. Ellie and Caroline have loved watching these new friendships form.

Mrs. Kohlhoff particularly appreciates how the pen-pal program has helped the Bronxville children really understand a different "world community." "The New York State third-grade social studies curriculum is about communities around the world," she said. "Having a pen pal in another country is a perfect way to make a connection with people from another world community. The kids ask specific questions in each letter, and they love reading the responses when they arrive. Our kids told them about snowstorms, the Super Bowl, music, and family life in recent letters. It has been a motivating and lively exchange in so many ways!"

Mrs. Visoky agrees: "Having the pen-pal program has really helped bring to life JBFC for our children. Our students have become very interested in the different culture of Africa and have lots of questions that are being directly answered for them. Ellie and Caroline did an excellent job of bringing Africa to Bronxville."

On Wednesday, May 7, two girls from the JBFC, Elizabeth and Zai, visited the two classrooms. Their Bronxville school pen pals were especially lucky to have them come. The Bronxville children brought in rainbow looms and taught the JBFC girls how to make bracelets. The children were also filmed and had the opportunity to say hello to their pen pals in Tanzania. This video will be brought to Tanzania so that Elizabeth and Zai can show it to their friends. At the end of the day, Elizabeth and Zai sang a beautiful traditional song to the class.

After this past year, it is clear that both the children in the Bronxville School third-grade classes and the girls at JBFC have learned so much from each other and about cultures that are so different from their own. Ellie and Caroline brought a program to Bronxville that has been extremely enriching for all. 

Pictured here:  Pam Kohlhoff and Judy Visoky with two girls from Tanzania and their Bronxville School pen pals.

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