Emy Gelb-Free the Children

The other day Emy Gelb came to visit our school. She is a former MCDS student who now works for FREE THE CHILDREN.  Emy loves to travel. She flew to Guatemala for the first time without speaking Spanish after she graduated from high school. When she got on a bus to go to the city, the bus looked like a school bus, except it was painted crazy colors and it had shag carpet and disco balls. In the middle of the drive the bus driver pulled over and let a woman on the bus.  She stood right next to Emy. Everything was normal about her except that she was holding a chicken…on a bus. Emy started thinking about how the bus driver didn’t care about safety because he was running red lights. She had never been so frightened or excited in her life.

While she was there, Emy learned about an American woman who sold all her belongings and took the money to move back to Guatemala and make a school.  Emy found that school and worked there for three months. Imagine seeing 40 football fields of trash and seeing kids who should be in school, and grandmothers climbing all over it looking for food, clothing or anything of value. That was what the Guatemalan dump looked like. This dump was right next to the school.  Emy was working with a student named Maria, and Emy asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. Maria said that she wanted to be a teacher so that she could teach her grandma how to read. 

Emy also visited Ecuador with students from Toronto, Canada. They helped a school kitchen get clean water for nutrition. Everyone in the community pitched in to dig a ditch to move the clean water.  Emy saw little old ladies who would dig and dig and helped a lot.  In Ecuador many men think they are better than woman and that woman are their property. In one town Emy visited, she was impressed by women who made beautiful textiles from sheep’s  wool. These women formed groups and worked so that the men could think of them as something more, something better.

One of the things that they say at Free the Children is PASSION+ISSUE=CHANGE. It means that when you put passion into an issue it makes a change.

Emy also gave us three challenges:

1.     Do your research. (Become a expert)

2.     Get creative!

3.    Do Something!

By Lila F.