Lesson in poverty close to home

from North Jersey Herald

By DANIELLE SHAPIRO

PASSAIC -- To inform their peers about global poverty and human rights, some Lincoln Middle School students are using a mix of pictures, posters and writings to illustrate the issue.

And for these youngsters, seventh-and eighth-grade members of the Quality of Life after-school program, as well as Sandy Shevack, the program's site coordinator, it is an opportunity to show that children can indeed contribute to eradicating some of the world's most intractable social problems.

Students say they are excited about the project and the prospect of teaching other children what they have learned about how pervasive poverty is in the world.

Anastasia McBurse, 12, a seventh-grader, said learning about poverty has made her grateful for what she has and hopes the display's message, as she sees it, will be one of selflessness.

"(It will) inform people and persuade them to help," she said, "because most people these days don't care about problems like this. They're all about themselves."

The Quality of Life after-school program is a comprehensive curriculum in which students can receive help on homework, tutoring, computer training, character-building and also have recreational opportunities. The effort is run by the Board of Education and funded with a $535,000 grant from the state Department of Education for the 2006-07 school year, said program director Angela Burgos-Scott.

The program is offered in four district schools. School staff can refer students to the program or parents can apply to have their children admitted. Acceptance is on a first come, first serve basis. However, students referred by school staff are enrolled into the program even if it is full, Scott said.

Since October, the 50 to 60 students taking part have learned about human rights, said Shevack, by visiting the United Nations and by watching an Academy Award-winning documentary called "Mighty Times: The Children's March" produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Home Box Office. The documentary focuses about children's activism in the civil rights movement. Students also learn by hearing from speakers from Amnesty International and Free the Children, both global human rights organizations.

The exhibit, in the school's second-floor showcase, will provide snapshots about poverty, land mines, sweatshops, and the need for clean water, among other things. There are 10 student volunteers who are researching and compiling facts as well as statistics to use in the display about poverty and possible solutions.

Jesus Sanchez, 12, a seventh-grader, said the human rights information can have a profound effect on students beyond middle school.

"If we talk about it in detail, they'll better understand it," he said of the influence on his peers, "so they can be an important person in the future that will help solve the problem."

Shevack based the premise for the display, which will be one of the students' required community service projects, on the U.N. Millennium Project, an advisory group commissioned by the U.N. secretary general in 2002 to develop recommendations on ending poverty, hunger and disease while promoting education, gender equality and environmental sustainability. The project has eight goals, the first of which is to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015. Such poverty is defined as living on less than $1 per day, according to the project's Web site.

While Shevack said he would teach human rights anywhere, he did acknowledge a special relevance for Passaic students to learn about these international issues.

"It's particularly important to teach this to students from disenfranchised and low-income communities," he said, "so that they understand that they have the capacity to control their destiny as well as change our community and world."