“Changemakers” Service Learning Curriculum Project

Dedicated to the belief that we in the US have an increasing responsibility to help build a culture of service learning and service activities among the youth of America, AfricAid has helped develop the “Changemakers” Service Learning Curriculum project.

Using as its springboard the Young Heroes series of educational books, which spotlight the service work of youth such as AfricAid’s founder, Ashley Shuyler, “Changemakers” provides elementary school teachers with curriculum materials that focus on helping pre-teen children begin to develop habits of service, giving and caring. The curriculum includes suggested interactive and multisensory activities that are meant to augment the lessons to be learned from the Young Heroes books. In addition, the program draws upon other books such as “Kids’ Random Acts of Kindness” and books that allow them to identify with a child in another country, like “Children Just Like Me” from UNICEF, that are all geared to help emphasize to American youth the truth that one person/one child can make a difference in this world.

The “Changemakers” curriculum is a dual curriculum, with one that is specific to Africa and the other more generic. By the end of the combined curriculum, teachers should expect to have created a step approach for their students that would involve:

� Helping someone in their classroom
� Helping someone in their family or circle of friends
� Helping someone in their community
� Helping someone in another part of the world

Particular service activities can be decided by each individual student, or in conjunction with youth mentoring projects such as Peace Jam.

Through the “Changemakers” curriculum, it is hoped that young Americans will have a greater understanding of the connection between poverty and a lack of education, and between caring and giving back. The “Changemakers” Service Learning Curriculum program seeks to encourage both individual involvement and group involvement in our community and in our world, and to help teach young children the value and satisfaction that comes from developing lifelong habits of serving, giving and caring.

Curriculum Links

Click here for the AfricAid Service Learning Curriculum’s “Ugali Recipe”.
Click here to go to the Operation Bootstrap Africa website for the AfricAid Service Learning Curriculum’s instructions for “Making Mud Bricks”.

To find out how your school can obtain and use the “Changemakers” curriculum, please contact us.