Chicago Museum Partners with Humanitarian Organization to Connect Students with Darfuri Refugees thr

Starting this month, the Little Ripples Global Citizens curriculum, an education program of iACT, will be part of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center’s Myself, My Community teaching resources available for K-2 classrooms. Schools who participate have the opportunity to connect their classrooms with classrooms in Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad. Students will explore personal and cultural identity, empathy, family, and friendship through the lens of character education. They explore how to be a contributing part of their local and global community, what it takes to care for themselves and others, and how to speak up for what is right.

The Little Ripples Global Citizens, a 2018 Make Change Awards finalist, program provides empathy-based and developmentally-appropriate tools, activities, and resources that meet nationally-recognized learning foundations. The four-week curriculum offers daily lessons with objectives, resources, and activities that teach students about themselves and the life of their refugee peers, while focusing on social-emotional development, language and literacy, mathematics, science, performing arts, physical development, health, history/social science, and science. Global Citizens, recently nominated as an Innovation of the Year for Los Angeles’ Make Change Awards, fosters connections and meaningful learning opportunities for children as global citizens. It is a historic experience for youngsters which plants seeds of compassion and interdependence that will last a lifetime. This experience is a safe way to share the joys of participation, cultural ambassadorship, and empathy-based living within our younger school communities.