14 The Hampton Roads Messenger
Volume 8 Number 11
Korean Humanitarian Uses Taekwondo to Change the Lives of Syrian Refugee Children
BY ETHEL NAVALES The Zaatari refugee camp in
Jordan began in 2012 and has opened its doors to over 100,000 people who have fled their homes due to the Syrian civil war. Charles Lee, a South Korean humanitarian, witnessed much of this chaos during his 14 years spent living in the Middle East.
More than half of the Syrian
refugees in the Zaatari camp were children under the age of 18. These children lost their home, their school, their friends and even family members.
Understandably, the children were
in a state of despair. Lee felt that he needed to do something to lift the spirit of these children. He then recalled being inspired by his experiences with Taekwondo back home in Korea. Recognizing the positive teachings of the sport, he decided to open a Taekwondo school at the Zaatari refugee camp in July 2013.
“These children have seen their
family members killed and tortured,” Lee recalls. “My ultimate goal is to raise them to be he next generation of leaders. And Taekowndo is the right tool to deliver that message.”
Has it helped the children?
Absolutely. The small group of 60 kids has
now turned into a school with classes four days a week and a wait-list three digits long. Parents claim that the martial arts help their children gain a sense of sportsmanship and helps
them keep active in the camp. Most importantly, parents have said the training helps their children cope with the trauma of the civil war.
Currently in production, After
Spring is a documentary which takes an even closer look at the Taekwondo class by following the families and students in Lee’s class.
The filmmakers are currently
raising funds to travel back to Jordan and explore deeper into the stories of Mr. Lee and his students.
Flagging Kids FROM PAGE 10
interventions themselves can be small. “I’m not putting out fires, going around trying to solve problems. I’m supporting the system that supports individual kids,” said O’Reilly.
But English teacher Jason Black Our Faith
By Rev. Dr. Gregory Headen The spirit na-
ture that is within us needs to look up. The Psalmist said, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. . .” We may really underestimate the awesome power of
our spirit nature. The spirit part of us is what moves us pushes us beyond our understanding. The apostle Paul once said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” (1 Cor. 14:15 KJV). He was stress- ing the importance of interpretation when one spoke in tongues within the church so that others could under- stand what was being spoken. The church when gathered may not be the place or the time for the individual be- liever to have his or her own private party with God in the spirit. Corpo- rate worship may not be the time to act as if there is no one worshipping God but you, but there does need to be that dimension of our life that has its own private party with God even when you do not understand it. The truth is that there is much that
we will not understand, and empty of understanding, we must still look up. These are trying times that we are in, and so much of what we have trusted in and understood is crumbling before our eyes. So when the normal rugs that we have stood on are pulled from under us, what will we do? We will look up. Up is not so much about spa- tial directions as much as it is about knowing in whom we have believed. It is about being aware of the eternal reality of God who is faithful and who desires to hear from His children and to help His children. It is the faith that reinterprets and redefines a tragedy as a blessing, a loss as a gain, a whipping as an act of love. It is the unexplain- able conviction that whatever we are going through right now (personally, with family, financially or what ever) is God’s way of getting us ready for our next assignment. I hope you can see now why it is
so important to feed your spirit so that it can look across pain, through hard- ships and bereavements, and beyond understanding to the One who sits on the throne forever and ever. Worship, prayer and the Word are more impor- tant now than ever. Make sure you feed your spirit.
says he thinks it is okay to tell students outright if they’re being targeted. “I think that actually makes them feel good, knowing they have a team behind them, knowing that they have a lot of people they will let down,” said Black.
Eighth-grader Gabby said that she
appreciated the intervention, because she already knew she was messing up. “My math teacher, she came to talk to me, she pulled me out individually and told me about my grades and she said English needs to be better… Then my history teacher pulled me out as well, so I knew that they really cared,” said Gabby.
And teachers end up grading
themselves too, using the data trends to set goals for their own classrooms.
Creating the structure for this
kind of data-driven attention doesn’t come cheap. There are almost as many support staff at Clinton as there are teachers, to provide wrap-around services, according to the principal.
Gabby went from an F to a B
in English. But what happens when Gabby graduates from Clinton, and this strong support network disappears? For Andrea Schwartz who crunches the data at Clinton, that’s her biggest concern. “It keeps me up at night… How do we build up these kids so that they have a solid enough foundation that they can go on and progress?”
Outside of the Clinton campus,
early warning data are collected on students throughout the Los Angeles School District. But according to Cynthia Lim at the Office of Data and Accountability, other schools don’t have the human capital to help teachers analyze and respond to that data consistently.
July 2014
Michelle Howard FROM PAGE 1
the ceremony and administered the oath of office, said, according to the release.
"Her accomplishment is a direct
example of a Navy that now, more than ever, reflects the nation it serves—a nation where success is not born of race, gender or religion but of skill and ability."
"Michelle's many trailblazing accomplishments in her 32 years of naval service are evidence of both her fortitude and commitment to excellence and integrity," Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, added. "I look forward to many great things to come from the Navy's newest four-star admiral!"
Howard graduated from the U.S.
Naval Academy in 1982 and from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1998. She has a master's degree in military arts and sciences.
In addition to being the first
female four-star admiral, she is also the first African-American woman to command a ship in the U.S. Navy, the release notes.
President Obama’s senior adviser,
Valerie Jarrett, tweeted out her con- gratulations to the inspiring admiral, who was awarded the 2011 USO Military Woman of the Year and the 2013 NAACP Chairman’s Image Award.
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