Oprah Winfrey's New Education-Focused Philanthropy Program, O Ambassadors, Selects Two MicroSociety Schools to Participate

Oprah Winfrey's New Education-Focused Philanthropy Program, O Ambassadors, Selects Two MicroSociety Schools to Participate

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two MicroSociety schools, Chula Vista Community Learning Center in Chula Vista, California, and Sarah Cobb Elementary in Americus, Georgia, have been chosen to participate in Oprah Winfrey's O Ambassadors program. "We're thrilled with the news, though not necessarily surprised," says Carolynn King Richmond, President and CEO of MicroSociety, Inc. a Philadelphia-based education non-profit. "Global awareness and a strong focus on service learning is at the heart of the MicroSociety program, as well as being a hallmark of the administrations running both of these outstanding schools," Richmond explained.

The program, a partnership by Oprah's Angel Network and Free the Children, pairs schools in North America with people in developing nations around the world. Efforts will rally around one of the United Nations' four Millennium Development Goals: poverty, education, health, and sustainable development.

Through classroom activities or extra curricular after school programming, selected O Ambassador Schools will focus on one of the five regions in our world worst hit by poverty, hunger, and disease: West Africa, East Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America. Students will plan and execute activities to help raise funds for development projects in their chosen region, and to increase awareness within the school community about difficulties facing men, women, and children there.

Currently in their first year of program implementation, Sarah Cobb Elementary is a new addition to the MicroSociety community. Conversely, Chula Vista Community Learning Center, an internationally themed charter school, is one of MicroSociety's most senior sites, with eleven years of programmatic experience.

In the MicroSociety program, students create a microcosm of the real world within the classroom. Each student has a role in running that world. Young entrepreneurs produce goods and services, elected officials establish laws, Peacekeepers keep the peace, and reporters track down stories. All citizens earn wages and pay taxes, tuition, and rent. For one class period per day, in a society of their own design, students assume the role of citizens and learn by playing, doing, and working as they discover the rules of justice and the functions of money, markets, and property.

MicroSociety, Inc. is a non-profit organization representing an innovative research-based approach to K-8 education that introduces relevancy into learning by incorporating real-world experiences into basic school curriculum and helping students apply classroom learning to real-life situations. Designed to empower young people to take an active role in their own education, MicroSociety programs incorporate student interests such as citizenship, leadership, performance, journalism, and entrepreneurship into the learning process. Student jobs in a MicroSociety program reinforce basic academic skills and lessons, providing them with opportunities for drill and practice and preparing them to be leaders.

The MicroSociety program provides the motivational tools necessary for students to envision a future of exciting possibilities and make the academic and career choices required to achieve that future. Find out more about MicroSociety's national conference as well as its programs and services at www.microsociety.org or call Keith Pierce at 215-922-4006.

CONTACT: Keith Pierce
Senior Vice President
Phone: (215) 922-4006
E-mail: kpierce@microsociety.org

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: MicroSociety

CONTACT: Keith Pierce, Senior Vice President of MicroSociety,
+1-215-922-4006, kpierce@microsociety.org

Web site:

http://www.microsociety.org/

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