WATCH: Kelowna students experience global school house

KELOWNA – About 1,400 Central Okanagan School District students are taking part in the Global School House event this week. Moving from one scenario to another in the shoes of a child trying to go to school in a developing country, the students learn about various barriers to education in other parts of the world.

“You can’t go to school because you’re sick, you have to work, because you’re a girl, because there are very limited resources like one pencil amongst several students,” says Joyce Brinkerhoff, Executive Director of Global Citizen Kelowna, explaining the various stations at the event.

Grade six teacher Melodie Carr says the (grade six) students are learning about global issues in class, making this experience a good supplement to their classroom education.

“Hopefully if it starts in grade six or younger, we can build on that and by the time they get to grade 12, we are going to have amazing young citizens,” says Carr.

Local non–profit groups engage the students with interactive stations such as a sweat shop to highlight some of the barriers to accessing education.

“All children around the world have the same dreams and the same hopes and without the opportunity of an education, you can’t always reach those dreams,” says Brinkerhoff.

She says using money from a federal grant; the non profits are paid for their participation in the event to help support their efforts overseas and here at home. The event runs until next Thursday. Global Citizen Kelowna will wrap up this year’s events with an art exhibition. Click here for more information.