Monday, July 2, 2012

THIRD ANNUAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOT CAMP IS UNDERWAY

ANSO’S THIRD ANNUAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOT CAMP (ELBC) will be held in Fantalle, Ethiopia in July, 2012. On Thursday,  June 28th, Rebeca Elliot, Lora Swanberg and Sharon Biggs left Grande Prairie with mounds of luggage (mostly teaching supplies) for an incredible summer adventure.  After an overnight stay in Edmonton, they  departed for Ethiopia, arriving in Addis Ababa late in the evening on June 30th.  After a short one day “adjustment” stay in Addis, they will be spending five days doing the tourist thing in the north of Ethiopia, visiting Bahir-dar, Gondar and Lalibela and getting to know a bit about the country they are in.  Saturday, July 7th will find them back in Addis for a day of organization and shopping for last minute, additional school supplies.  At this point, they will be joined by Jennifer Morrison from Red Deer.
On Sunday, July 8th, the four of them will make the four hour trip to Fantalle and will get introduced to their home for the next three weeks.  In Fantalle there is a boarding school run by the Gudina Tumsa Foundation of Ethiopia.  While ANSO organizes the teachers and supplies at this end, and pays the direct financial costs of running the ELBC, the Gudina Tumsa Foundation (GTF) looks after the teachers while they are in Addis and provides transportation to the school, provides each teacher with a teaching assistant, selects the students who will attend the ELBC and looks after all the logistics required to run such a project.
Rebeca, Lora, Sharon and Jennifer, along with four teaching assistance, will involve 70 Ethiopian high school students in three weeks of total immersion English instruction.  It is guaranteed that not only will the ELBC change the lives of the 70 students fortunate enough to be selected to attend, it will also have a profound impact on the lives of the Canadian teachers who volunteer to design and instruct this course.
After completing the ELBC on Friday, July 27th, they will take two days to travel to Awasa and see some of the southern and central part of Ethiopia before returning to Addis Ababa for two days of city sightseeing and the return trip to Canada on August 1st (actually, Jennifer is traveling in Ethiopia for an additional three weeks, but that is a different story).
Sound interesting?   Know of someone who might be interested in getting involved in ANSO’s Fourth Annual ELBC?  Why not get in touch with us and find out about the possibilities for 2013?

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