Global Learning Charter Public School (GLCPS), a tuition-free public charter school that currently services 500 students in grades 5-12, recently sent four administrators to visit the public schools on the island of Sao Vicente, Cape Verde to strengthen the global educational partnership.
The visit this past summer followed up on the eight administrators and teachers who began the partnership when traveling to Cape Verde in 2019. This summer’s visit worked on strengthening relations and planning future logistics for Phase 3 of the project which will focus on using technology to bring the students together to share culture and foreign language skills. Using video conference technology the Sao Vicente students will be able to practice English in a non threatening format while the GLCPS students learn Portuguese and Cape Verdean.
The program will lead to a 10 day trip in April of 2023 for students to visit Sao Vicente to explore and learn the culture. The students will have the opportunity to explore music, the arts such as tapestry and batik, martial arts, language, dance, culture and the environment. The service learning will include students from the 10th through 12th grades.
GLCPS has shared teaching practices and provided technology support to the Sao Vicente Schools and has also presented gently used notebook computers. Adonis Ferreira, Director of Student, Family and Community Life for GLCPS said that many of their students and families share common ancestry with the Cape Verdeans estimating that between 15 to 20 percent are first, second and third generation Cape Verdeans.
To support the partnership the GLCPS National Honor Society has a project to raise school supplies for the students including backpacks,flip flops, sneakers and uniform t-shirts. The supplies scheduled for shipment include 200 t-shirts with the school’s logo for children and staff to wear to school and backpacks filled with pencils, pens and reading materials.
“Our students and our community have embraced this program and it deeply benefits both of our school programs,” said Ferreira. “Sao Vicente is a beautiful island with warm and generous people and we look forward to continuing our partnership and working towards our service and learning project. Our students will be able to explore their culture, music, arts, dance and food in person which will enhance their global learning experience.”