In the News
The Herald-Palladium
St. Joseph/Benton Harbor, Michigan
9/29/2014
Teaching Near the Top of the World
By JOHN MATUSZAK - HP Staff Writer
Some people are willing to go to the ends of the Earth to make a difference in someone's life.
That's what St. Joseph native Diann Grimm has been doing since 2012, traveling to remote villages in Nepal to build and equip classrooms and train teachers in early childhood education.
This isn't the first far-flung region Grimm has worked in during her 35-year education career. The 1972 graduate of St. Joseph High School taught on an Indian reservation in northern Montana after earning a bachelor's degree from Central Michigan University. During summer breaks, while continuing her education and working for the California Department of Education, she volunteered in Russia, Ghana, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and other countries.
She first traveled to Nepal in 2008 and became friends with Bhupendra Ghimire, who started Volunteering Initiative Nepal, an organization to build schools and to improve the health and economic well-being of women.
In December 2012 Grimm and her husband, Dan Schwab, also an educator, founded the nonprofit Partners in Sustainable Learning. In 2013 Grimm returned to the Okhaldhunga district in the Himalayan foothills, and trained 20 women as teachers. She has held two additional training sessions and, so far, 42 teachers have been trained, affecting the lives of 350 children.
Grimm, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, is going back to Nepal in November. Grimm is the daughter of Eleanor and the late Bob Grimm.
She recently came to St. Joseph to attend the wedding of her niece, and addressed the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club, where her father was a member for 40 years. She spoke with Herald-Palladium Staff Writer John Matuszak about her mission in Nepal.
Describe Nepal for us.
Nepal is a very, very poor country. The majority of its economy comes from tourism (people traveling to climb Mount Everest). There are no exports. Twenty-five percent of its economy comes from money from people working outside of the country in Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, doing awful, dirty, dangerous, degrading work. It's land-locked between India and China. The government is not run very efficiently. But the people are the kindest I have ever met.
What is the education system like?
They have a national education system, but it's poorly organized. They have no (classroom) materials, and many of the teachers don't get paid. They have very little training and don't know how to work with children. The classrooms have dirt floors and dirt walls and no windows. They have a chalk board and that's about it.
What did the lessons consist of before you introduced the new curriculum?
The children sit on the dirt floor. They have these little tiny exercise books and a stub of a pencil, and they copy letters off the chalk board for hours. This needed to change. We introduced physical skills and taught them to play games that would improve their fine motor skills that would get them ready to write and would teach them how to turn the pages of a book. They don't have books. They don't know what books can give us.
What is daily life like for the villagers?
The women carry their babies on their backs for two hours to get to the classroom. And that's after getting up and gathering fodder to feed the animals. They start a fire and cook a meal of dal bhat, rice and lentel soup, wash the dishes and then they walk to school. The houses are made of rocks and mud. There is no electricity. They eat what they grow. If they have a bad growing season it can be difficult for them to have enough food. The men work very hard, too.
Where did you see your work having an impact?
There was a young woman named Rima. She had seven children (two that died), she's about 30 years old. During the first training she was very shy. She struggled with following the training. When she asked a question she would cover her mouth with her scarf. When I went back last November she was teaching in a room about as big as this kitchen with 14 kids jammed in there. I was so proud of her that she was teaching. My organization agreed to buy the materials to build a classroom. The community built the classroom on land donated by an elderly man in the village, it was a very generous donation, and Rima was the organizer of it all. She went from being shy and unempowered to leading the charge on building this place. When I first went to Nepal, I thought I would be helping the children, which I am. We are also helping the women who are now making a salary, contributing to their families, and learning new skills.
What are your living arrangements in Nepal?
I usually go for four to five weeks at a time. I stay in the home of a younger couple, Uttar and Bimala, who have two children and who live with his parents. The house is quite nice. It's made of mud. Downstairs there is a kitchen, and the fire is on the floor. It's very smoky. There is an upper room with beds. I sleep on a wooden platform with a thin mat. There is no running water, you have to walk about 50 yards to the tap and carry it back. I bathe once a week. To take a shower you stand under the tap wearing this kind of muumuu dress, standing in front of everybody. It's a very dirty place, very earthy. Ten minutes after you take a shower you're dirty again.
How remote is the village? What is the climate like?
From Kathmandu, the capital, it's 150 miles, and it takes us two days to drive because the roads are so bad. ... I typically go in late March or early April and October or November. It's in the 70s during the day and in the evening it's in the 50s. It doesn't snow where I am, it's not high enough (the elevation is about 5,000 feet). We're directly south of Mount Everest.
What allows you to have a big impact in Nepal?
The thing that is unique here, a very small amount of money can make a huge difference. For $2,500 you can build a new classroom, buy all the furniture, send a teacher to training and pay her for a year. You can buy all the materials, put rugs on the floors, build tables and cubbies. For $450 you can pay the salary of a teacher for a year.
Do you feel this is the most rewarding work you have done?
Yes, I do. I feel like this is the culmination of my 35 years in public education, that I am using everything I have learned in doing this.
For information about donating, visit www.partnersinsustainablelearning.org.
Contact: jmatuszak@TheHP.com, 932-0360, Twitter @HPMatuszak www.HP.com
St. Joseph/Benton Harbor, Michigan
9/29/2014
Teaching Near the Top of the World
By JOHN MATUSZAK - HP Staff Writer
Some people are willing to go to the ends of the Earth to make a difference in someone's life.
That's what St. Joseph native Diann Grimm has been doing since 2012, traveling to remote villages in Nepal to build and equip classrooms and train teachers in early childhood education.
This isn't the first far-flung region Grimm has worked in during her 35-year education career. The 1972 graduate of St. Joseph High School taught on an Indian reservation in northern Montana after earning a bachelor's degree from Central Michigan University. During summer breaks, while continuing her education and working for the California Department of Education, she volunteered in Russia, Ghana, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and other countries.
She first traveled to Nepal in 2008 and became friends with Bhupendra Ghimire, who started Volunteering Initiative Nepal, an organization to build schools and to improve the health and economic well-being of women.
In December 2012 Grimm and her husband, Dan Schwab, also an educator, founded the nonprofit Partners in Sustainable Learning. In 2013 Grimm returned to the Okhaldhunga district in the Himalayan foothills, and trained 20 women as teachers. She has held two additional training sessions and, so far, 42 teachers have been trained, affecting the lives of 350 children.
Grimm, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, is going back to Nepal in November. Grimm is the daughter of Eleanor and the late Bob Grimm.
She recently came to St. Joseph to attend the wedding of her niece, and addressed the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club, where her father was a member for 40 years. She spoke with Herald-Palladium Staff Writer John Matuszak about her mission in Nepal.
Describe Nepal for us.
Nepal is a very, very poor country. The majority of its economy comes from tourism (people traveling to climb Mount Everest). There are no exports. Twenty-five percent of its economy comes from money from people working outside of the country in Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, doing awful, dirty, dangerous, degrading work. It's land-locked between India and China. The government is not run very efficiently. But the people are the kindest I have ever met.
What is the education system like?
They have a national education system, but it's poorly organized. They have no (classroom) materials, and many of the teachers don't get paid. They have very little training and don't know how to work with children. The classrooms have dirt floors and dirt walls and no windows. They have a chalk board and that's about it.
What did the lessons consist of before you introduced the new curriculum?
The children sit on the dirt floor. They have these little tiny exercise books and a stub of a pencil, and they copy letters off the chalk board for hours. This needed to change. We introduced physical skills and taught them to play games that would improve their fine motor skills that would get them ready to write and would teach them how to turn the pages of a book. They don't have books. They don't know what books can give us.
What is daily life like for the villagers?
The women carry their babies on their backs for two hours to get to the classroom. And that's after getting up and gathering fodder to feed the animals. They start a fire and cook a meal of dal bhat, rice and lentel soup, wash the dishes and then they walk to school. The houses are made of rocks and mud. There is no electricity. They eat what they grow. If they have a bad growing season it can be difficult for them to have enough food. The men work very hard, too.
Where did you see your work having an impact?
There was a young woman named Rima. She had seven children (two that died), she's about 30 years old. During the first training she was very shy. She struggled with following the training. When she asked a question she would cover her mouth with her scarf. When I went back last November she was teaching in a room about as big as this kitchen with 14 kids jammed in there. I was so proud of her that she was teaching. My organization agreed to buy the materials to build a classroom. The community built the classroom on land donated by an elderly man in the village, it was a very generous donation, and Rima was the organizer of it all. She went from being shy and unempowered to leading the charge on building this place. When I first went to Nepal, I thought I would be helping the children, which I am. We are also helping the women who are now making a salary, contributing to their families, and learning new skills.
What are your living arrangements in Nepal?
I usually go for four to five weeks at a time. I stay in the home of a younger couple, Uttar and Bimala, who have two children and who live with his parents. The house is quite nice. It's made of mud. Downstairs there is a kitchen, and the fire is on the floor. It's very smoky. There is an upper room with beds. I sleep on a wooden platform with a thin mat. There is no running water, you have to walk about 50 yards to the tap and carry it back. I bathe once a week. To take a shower you stand under the tap wearing this kind of muumuu dress, standing in front of everybody. It's a very dirty place, very earthy. Ten minutes after you take a shower you're dirty again.
How remote is the village? What is the climate like?
From Kathmandu, the capital, it's 150 miles, and it takes us two days to drive because the roads are so bad. ... I typically go in late March or early April and October or November. It's in the 70s during the day and in the evening it's in the 50s. It doesn't snow where I am, it's not high enough (the elevation is about 5,000 feet). We're directly south of Mount Everest.
What allows you to have a big impact in Nepal?
The thing that is unique here, a very small amount of money can make a huge difference. For $2,500 you can build a new classroom, buy all the furniture, send a teacher to training and pay her for a year. You can buy all the materials, put rugs on the floors, build tables and cubbies. For $450 you can pay the salary of a teacher for a year.
Do you feel this is the most rewarding work you have done?
Yes, I do. I feel like this is the culmination of my 35 years in public education, that I am using everything I have learned in doing this.
For information about donating, visit www.partnersinsustainablelearning.org.
Contact: jmatuszak@TheHP.com, 932-0360, Twitter @HPMatuszak www.HP.com
