(Courtesy Grady Grossman School) Kari Grady Grossman talks to villagers in Cambodia. The author is currently visiting Fort Collins to promote support for the country devastated by war and genocide.Saturday, April 7, 2007
By JP EICHMILLER
JPEichmiller@coloradoan.com
The Coloradoan (Ft. Collins, Colorado, USA)
Kari Grady Grossman traveled to Cambodia in 2001 with the intention of finding a child to adopt.
She came back to the U.S. with a 9-month-old son and a newfound mission to educate and better the lives of the children she could not take with her.
Since that life-altering journey, the author and documentary filmmaker from Lander, Wyo., has built and sustained a Cambodian elementary school and written a book about the experience. Grossman's hope is that one-quarter of the proceeds from her soon-to-be-released chronology "Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia" will help the fledgling school not only survive, but prosper.
Grady has been touring the Front Range for most of the past week to promote her book, scheduled to be released April 17, marking the 32-year anniversary of the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia. On Thursday and Friday, Grady spent time visiting two of the ninth-grade honors English classes at Lincoln Junior High School in Fort Collins.
"When we (she and her husband) went over there in March of 2001 to adopt our son, the experience really grabbed our hearts and we got involved with the education process over there," Grossman said. "We raised $15,000, which was matched by the World Bank. A school was then built in honor of our son."
Since the Grady Grossman School was first opened in 2001, enrollment has grown from 50 students to 485 students and eight teachers. The school has been such a success that the next step will be adding another building to the campus to be able to meet the demands of prospective students.
"Our goals now are to raise $10,000 to build a new computer lab and to stop the dropout rate of 50 percent by the third grade,'' she said."
Grossman said many of the students who leave the school are forced to because of their family's need for income. As proof of the difficulty of student retention, she pointed out the school's disproportionate enrollment, where 92 children are enrolled as first graders, but just 16 as sixth-graders.
Grady's purpose in speaking with the students in Colleen Conrad's English classes was to educate and get them involved in a "sister school" program with students half a world away.
Conrad said Grady's cause fits in nicely with the attitude of service-based learning she believes is embedded in the attitudes of Lincoln students.
"My kids love to do service; it is part of our culture," Conrad said. "It empowers the students to see what they can do."
Conrad said, during the last four years, her students have raised more than $42,000 to aid in removing land mines from Cambodia as part of the United Nations' "Adopt a Minefield" campaign - more than any school in the world, she claims.
When she heard about Grossman's experiences, she said it seemed like a perfect continuation of a charity her students had already adopted.
It is now Grossman and Conrad's hope that next year's Lincoln students will buy into the "sister school" program by becoming online English tutors for Cambodian students. The details haven't been figured out, but Grossman believes the first step is to gain the interest of students.
"Once we have the internet connection, we can have a sister school to teach English communication," Grossman said. "Right now, only 40 of 485 students are enrolled in English skills classes. In Cambodia, English skills open employment opportunities."
For additional information: www.gradygrossmanschool.org
She came back to the U.S. with a 9-month-old son and a newfound mission to educate and better the lives of the children she could not take with her.
Since that life-altering journey, the author and documentary filmmaker from Lander, Wyo., has built and sustained a Cambodian elementary school and written a book about the experience. Grossman's hope is that one-quarter of the proceeds from her soon-to-be-released chronology "Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia" will help the fledgling school not only survive, but prosper.
Grady has been touring the Front Range for most of the past week to promote her book, scheduled to be released April 17, marking the 32-year anniversary of the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia. On Thursday and Friday, Grady spent time visiting two of the ninth-grade honors English classes at Lincoln Junior High School in Fort Collins.
"When we (she and her husband) went over there in March of 2001 to adopt our son, the experience really grabbed our hearts and we got involved with the education process over there," Grossman said. "We raised $15,000, which was matched by the World Bank. A school was then built in honor of our son."
Since the Grady Grossman School was first opened in 2001, enrollment has grown from 50 students to 485 students and eight teachers. The school has been such a success that the next step will be adding another building to the campus to be able to meet the demands of prospective students.
"Our goals now are to raise $10,000 to build a new computer lab and to stop the dropout rate of 50 percent by the third grade,'' she said."
Grossman said many of the students who leave the school are forced to because of their family's need for income. As proof of the difficulty of student retention, she pointed out the school's disproportionate enrollment, where 92 children are enrolled as first graders, but just 16 as sixth-graders.
Grady's purpose in speaking with the students in Colleen Conrad's English classes was to educate and get them involved in a "sister school" program with students half a world away.
Conrad said Grady's cause fits in nicely with the attitude of service-based learning she believes is embedded in the attitudes of Lincoln students.
"My kids love to do service; it is part of our culture," Conrad said. "It empowers the students to see what they can do."
Conrad said, during the last four years, her students have raised more than $42,000 to aid in removing land mines from Cambodia as part of the United Nations' "Adopt a Minefield" campaign - more than any school in the world, she claims.
When she heard about Grossman's experiences, she said it seemed like a perfect continuation of a charity her students had already adopted.
It is now Grossman and Conrad's hope that next year's Lincoln students will buy into the "sister school" program by becoming online English tutors for Cambodian students. The details haven't been figured out, but Grossman believes the first step is to gain the interest of students.
"Once we have the internet connection, we can have a sister school to teach English communication," Grossman said. "Right now, only 40 of 485 students are enrolled in English skills classes. In Cambodia, English skills open employment opportunities."
For additional information: www.gradygrossmanschool.org
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