Thetford Academy students Kylie Butler, left, and Lizzy King look over the list of work sites for the annual Operation Day’s Work event last May. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck)
Operation Day's Work:
Solidarity, Not Charity, Across Cultures
By Sonia Scherr
Valley News Staff Writer
Considered one of the least developed countries in the world, Rwanda is an unusual destination for high school groups, but it had been a focus of study and service for the three Upper Valley students who traveled there in December.
The teenagers — Lizzy King, 17, and Kylie Butler, 16, juniors at Thetford Academy, and Rebecca Young-Ward, 16, a junior at The Sharon Academy — participate in Operation Day's Work-USA, a student organization at 18 schools nationwide, including six in the Upper Valley: Lebanon High School, Hanover High School, the Newton School in Strafford, Thetford Academy, Chelsea High School and The Sharon Academy. Operation Day's Work culminates each spring in a workday: Students donate money they earn doing odd jobs in the community, from washing windows to picking fruit, to a project of their choosing that benefits young people and education in a developing country.
Schools involved in Operation Day's Work across the country voted last school year to support a program in Rwanda that helps young people orphaned by AIDS become financially self-sufficient. Project Independence, launched in July using money donated by Operation Day's Work students, is run by CHABHA (Children Affected By HIV/AIDS), a nonprofit based in West Windham, Vt. Students at the 15 schools participating last year raised $26,000 for the project, including $12,000 at Thetford Academy, where nearly all students take part in the workday. Thetford Academy, which has some 400 students, is an independent school that serves as the public school for seventh- through 12th-graders in Thetford.
But Operation Day's Work isn't just about raising money. Students also learn about the country where the project takes place, then share the knowledge with their school and community. Thetford Academy offers a semester-long class in which students study the country, educate others about it and organize the year's workday. Lizzy took the class last school year, while Kylie took it both her freshman and sophomore years.
Rebecca, who's been involved with Operation Day's Work since seventh grade, runs a club at The Sharon Academy that organizes the workday for her school. About one-third of the 120 students in grades nine through 12 participated in the workday last school year, she said. Though The Sharon Academy is a private school, three-quarters of the students are publicly funded because tuition is kept at the state average, so towns without secondary schools will cover the full cost for students who choose to attend.
Operation Day's Work began in Norway in the 1960s and spread to other countries, including the United States in 1998. The program here was originally under the auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development, but the Bush administration announced in early 2005 that it planned to cut Operation Day's Work from its budget, said Cindy Perry, a Thetford Academy teacher and coordinator of Operation Day's Work in the United States. Thetford Academy was asked to administer Operation Day’s Work because of the school’s nonprofit status and its involvement in Operation Day’s Work since the program started in the United States. In September 2005, Thetford Academy officially took over the program with $30,000 in initial grant money, which ran out last month. (Thetford Academy doesn't contribute money toward Operation Day’s Work-USA, but it does pay for Perry to teach the related Thetford Academy course.)
The trip to Rwanda was the first time in the nine-year history of Operation Day's Work in the United States that students have gotten a close-up look at a project they'd financed. The founder of CHABHA, Susanna Grannis, had invited Perry to accompany her on a trip to Rwanda to see Project Independence. But Perry wanted to go only if she could bring some students from Operation Day's Work. So she asked Lizzy, Kylie and Rebecca to join her based on their commitment to Operation Day’s Work; also accompanying the students were Ellen Young, Rebecca’s mother, and chaperone Debra Archambault, Cindy’s sister.
The purpose of the trip was partly to learn about a developing country firsthand while making friends with the teenagers they'd supported, Perry said. Operation Day's Work emphasizes solidarity — understanding and unity among young people — rather than charity, which only goes one way. But until the trip to Rwanda, Operation Day's Work hadn’t provided a means for the American teenagers and the peers for whom they worked to get to know each other; often the teenagers in other countries weren’t even aware of the American students’ involvement. “This is actually going to create the solidarity that we've been missing,” Perry said.
Project Independence aims to provide job skills that will help orphaned young people — including many heads of households — earn money to support their families. Some 210,000 Rwandan children are orphans due to AIDS, with more than 100,000 living in child-headed households, according to the United Nations.
“Keeping the siblings together means the children will have a family history,” said Grannis, who grew up in Randolph Center. “They'll have people who love and care for them.”
The Rwandan students take part in three- or four-month internships in hospitality, culinary arts, hairstyling, auto mechanics, sewing and even photography. The program enables the orphaned young people it serves, ranging in age from 16 to 22, to break free of the isolation and stigma they may experience in their communities and come together with others in the same situation, said Project Independence leaders.
None of the Project Independence students are in high school. Often the responsibility of caring for their family prevents them from attending a secondary school, which may require them to live away from home, Grannis said. In addition, while primary school costs about $25 (including uniforms and books), secondary schools charge between $150 and $250 a year in a country with a per capita income of $230.
For more information about Operation Day's Work, visit www.odwusa.org.