what is postcrossing all about?

       Postcrossing is an online project that allows its members to send and receive postcards from all over the world. The project's tag line is "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!” Its members, also known as postcrossers, send postcards to other members and receive postcards back from other random postcrossers. Where the postcards come from is always a surprise.

       Postcrossing is the union of the words "postcard" and "crossing" and its origin "is loosely based on the Bookcrossing site". However, the "crossing" or exchange of postcards works in a different way. A member sends a postcard to another postcrosser and receives a postcard back from a random postcrosser. Exchanges between the same two members only occur once; although direct swaps between members happen, they are not part of the official happenings on the site. The project is completely free and anyone with an address can create an account. However, the postcards themselves and postage fees to mail them are the responsibility of each user.

       By June 2015 postcrossing had more than 554,570 members in 213 different countries who had registered and exchanged over 30 million postcards that have traveled over 151 billion kilometers.

        The highest concentration of postcrossing members reside (in order) in the United States, Russia, China, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine and Brazil. Globally, most postcrossers reside in North America, Europe, and East Asia. Of particular note, postcrossing is popular in eastern European and former-Soviet states. As of January 2012, more than a quarter of the combined total of postcards were sent from Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

6th graders give directions for postcrossing!

• Official website
• Postcrossing Official Forum
• Russian community of postcrossing (in Russian)
• Postcrossing Facebook Page
• Article about Postcrossing appeared on "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" newspaper

write a refugee child...

       The experiences children go through during times of armed conflict can impede their ability to learn in an educational setting. Schools experience drop-outs of refugee and immigrant students from an array of factors such as: rejection by peers, low self-esteem, antisocial behavior, negative perceptions of their academic ability, and lack of support from school staff and parents. Because refugees come from various regions globally with their own cultural, religious, linguistic, and home practices, the new school culture can conflict with the home culture, causing tension between the student and their family.

       Aside from students, teachers and school staff also face their own obstacles in working with refugee students. They have concerns about their ability to meet the mental, physical, emotional, and educational needs of students. One study of newly arrived Somali Bantu students in a Chicago school questioned whether schools were equipped to provide them with a quality education that met the needs of the refugee students. Teachers may even see refugee students as "different" from other immigrant groups, as was the case with the refugee students from Somalia. Teachers may sometimes feel that their work is made harder because of the pressures to meet state requirements for testing. With refugee children falling behind or struggling to catch up, it can overwhelm teachers and administrators.

       Not all students adjust the same way to their new setting. One student may take only three months, while others may take four years. One study found that even in their fourth year of schooling, Lao and Vietnamese refugee students in the US were still in a transitional status. Refugee students will continue to encounter difficulties throughout their years in schools that can hinder their ability to learn. Furthermore, educators must consider the experiences of students pre-settlement in the US in order to provide them with the proper support.

       In their first settlement countries, refugee students may encounter negative experiences with education that they can carry with them post settlement. For example:

• Frequent disruption in their education as they move from place to place
• Limited access to schooling
• Language barriers
• Little resources to support language development and learning, and more

       Statistics found that in places such as Uganda and Kenya, there were gaps in refugee students attending schools. It found that 80% of refugees in Uganda were attending schools, whereas only 46% of students were attending schools in Kenya. Furthermore, for secondary levels, the numbers were much lower. There was only 1.4% of refugee students attending schools in Malaysia. This trend is evident across several first settlement countries and carry negative impacts on students once they arrive to their permanent settlement homes, such as the US, and have to navigate a new education system. Unfortunately, some refugees do not have a chance to attend schools in their first settlement countries because they are considered undocumented immigrants in places like Malaysia for Rohingya refugees. (Wikipedia)

 Read more about the anyrefugee project.

• UNHCR RefWorld
• Bridging Youth Refugees and Children's Services

travel the world with flat stanley...

The original "Flat Stanley" by Jeff Brown

       The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade school teacher in London, Ontario, Canada. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by schoolchildren to each other as they document where Flat Stanley has accompanied them. Dale Hubert received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001 for the Flat Stanley Project.

       The Project provides an opportunity for students to make connections with students of other member schools who have signed up with the project. Students begin by reading the book and becoming acquainted with the story. They create paper "Flat Stanleys" (representative drawings of the Stanley Lambchop character) and keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. Each student's Flat Stanley and its respective journal are mailed to other people who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal, then return them both after a period of time. The project has many similarities to the traveling gnome prank except, of course, for the Flat Stanley Project's focus on literacy.

       Students may find it fun to plot Flat Stanley's travels on maps and share the contents of the journal. Often, a Flat Stanley returns with a photo or postcard from his visit. Some teachers prefer to use e-mail for its quicker travel time.

       In 2005, more than 6,500 classes from 48 countries took part in the Flat Stanley Project.

       The project was featured in a 2004 episode of the animated TV series King of the Hill, in which Nancy Gribble receives a Flat Stanley in the mail. Peggy Hill and Luanne Platter photograph it in a number of dangerous situations, resulting in the school's Flat Stanley Project being cancelled.

       According to the February 26, 2009 broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Flat Stanley was on board US Airways Flight 1549 which landed safely in the Hudson River. He was carried to safety in the briefcase of his traveling companion.

       In early 2010, Darren Haas, a huge Flat Stanley advocate and applications architect, approached Dale Hubert with the idea of turning the Flat Stanley Project concept into an app for the iPhone.

       Also in 2010, fans of the baseball team the St. Louis Cardinals were asked (via the team website) to petition US President Barack Obama to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Baseball Hall of Famer Stan Musial. A "Flat Stan" downloadable cutout figure was made available to encourage Cardinals fans to take a photo with Musial's caricature and send them in as petitions.

• Flat Stanley Books
• The Flat Stanley Project
• Flat Stanley in Jerusalem
• This show is part of the Broadway Junior Collection:
• Flat Stanley at Pinterest
• Flat Stanley at I Can Read

 a project by Micah Gray

robot writes letters and draws pictures!

       Robots are not strictly a modern invention. At the right is seen “Miss Automaton,” a robot doll over a hundred years old. When a motor is geared to its mechanism, which is located under the table, the doll writes letters and draws pictures with a pen which it holds in its right hand. In the photo she is seen drawing a ship for the amazement and amusement of spectators.
       “Miss Automaton” was the gift of John W. Brock, of Philadelphia, whose father, John Penn Brock, bought the doll in 1870 in France, to the the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Right, Here is "Miss Automaton," the century old robot which draws pictures and writes letters according to the dictates of the mechanism situated at her feet.

See More Automatons:

• Joueuse de Tympanon - automate
• Restauration des automates de Pierre et Henri Louis (English subtitles)
• Japanese "Karakuri" automata
• Lost art of Automatons "Alive Again"
• I included a link to a Pierrot automaton at the Belsnickel Blog here
  

       "See more of three surviving automata from the 18th century built by Jaquet Droz, this is ''The Writer'' and is the most famou... The Writer Automaton A 240 year old doll that can write, a clockwork creation by Pierre Jaquet-Droz. Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721-1790) was a Swiss-born watchmaker of the late eighteenth century. He lived in Paris, London, and... On you will find a DVD named ''The Jaquet-Droz androids''. This documentary tells the story of Pierre Jaquet-Droz a sw... From the bestselling children's novel ''The Invention of Hugo Cabret'' to the Oscar nominated film ''Hugo,'' automatons - mechanical marvels from a time gone by ... Jaquet Droz The Writer Automaton From 1774 In Action: Inspired Hugo Movie. Automato escrevendo no museu do automato e da caixinha de musica em Sainte-Croix, Suiça... identica ao automato visto no filme Hugo Automaton writing in the ... A demonstration of the Maillardet's Automaton at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia." 

write for freedom!

      Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty and AI) is a non-governmental organization focused on human rights with over 3 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organization is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."

      Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961, following the publication of the article "The Forgotten Prisoners" in The Observer 28 May 1961, by the lawyer Peter Benenson. Amnesty draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to mobilise public opinion to put pressure on governments that let abuse take place. The organisation was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its "campaign against torture," and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978.

      In the field of international human rights organizations Amnesty has the longest history and broadest name recognition, and is believed by many to set standards for the movement as a whole. Read more . . .

 

"My cage confines me round:

Abroad I can not fly;

But tho my wings are closely bound,

My heart's at liberty.

My prison walls can not control

The flight, the freedom of the soul.

And in God's mighty will I find

The joy, the freedom of the mind."

 by Madam Guyon

"savannah's soldiers"

      Below is a story on video about a young girl who reaches out to so many in need of a letter from home.

       Savanna Maddison, starts letter writing campaign for troops "It's really amazing to see that we're doing a great thing. It's working," said Savannah Maddison Ogden, 11, who has sent thousands of letters to the military serving in Afghanistan. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

hannah brencher writes love letters to strangers

      "Hannah Brencher's mother always wrote her letters. So when she felt herself bottom into depression after college, she did what felt natural -- she wrote love letters and left them for strangers to find. The act has become a global initiative, The World Needs More Love Letters, which rushes handwritten letters to those in need of a boost.

      TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

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      Hannah Brencher, who started The World Needs More Love Letters, demonstrates how a simple act of kindness can turn life around for the giver and receiver.

write to end world hunger

  

      Bread for the World is a non-partisan, Christian citizens' movement in the United States to end hunger. The organization describes itself as a collective Christian voice urging nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. By changing policies, programs, and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, it provides help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which they live.

      In October 1972, a small group of Catholics and Protestants met to reflect on how persons of faith could be mobilized to influence U.S. policies that address the causes of hunger. Under the leadership of the Reverend Arthur Simon, the group began to test the idea in the spring of 1974. By year's end, more than 500 people had joined the ranks of Bread for the World as citizen advocates for hungry people.

      In September 1991, the Reverend David Beckmann succeeded Simon as president.

      Bread for the World is a founding member of The ONE Campaign—a movement to rally    Americans to respond to the global emergencies of extreme poverty, hunger and AIDS.

      Each year, Bread for the World invites churches across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry people. Since 1974 the Offering of Letters campaign has focused on a different hunger issue each year; 2007's campaign was called Seeds of Change: Help Farmers End Hunger and aimed to provoke the reform of the U.S. Farm Bill.