Dear Readers

Welcome to the July 2005 issue of the email newsletter.

This month:

• Massive Response to Healthy Lifestlye Event in Leicester
  
• Teaching Vacancies in 'Miracle School' of Zambia

• Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter - New Values-based Play Comes to Edinburgh Fringe

• Training Update
• Calendar of Values Alive Events
• Story: Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Please don't forget the SSEHV National Day on Saturday September 17th. To reserve your place, please contact Pamela Nash (+44 (0) 1784 244494). More information about the event is available at www.ssehv.org.uk.

If you have any feedback about this newsletter, or if you'd like to share your experiences of SSEHV, please write to us.

Kind Regards,
The Newsletter Team

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Massive Response to Healthy Lifestyle Event in Leicester

More than 450 people, mostly children, attended a free Healthy Lifestyle Event in a Neighbourhood Centre in the middle of Leicester on Saturday 25th June. The event was staged by the SSEHV Good Values Club of Leicester, in collaboration with BBC Children in Need and a local primary school.

There were a host of activities for people to get involved in, including arts and crafts, puzzles and interactive games. Children had the chance to have their face painted with a Human Values fruit (strawberry for love, pear for peace, cherries for right conduct, apple for truth and grapes for non-violence) and everyone who came was offered a free healthy fruit smoothie. The day culminated with children performing plays and dancing.

Literature about healthy eating and living was given out to attendees and each child took home an activity pack containing games, puzzles and colouring pictures.

The event was so successful that it was repeated on Thursday 14th July at the primary school. Classes attended the event in rotation for one hour each throughout the day. A parenting course and a Values Alive Event are now also planned at the school as a result of the Healthy Lifestyle day.

The master mind behind both Healthy Lifestyle Events was Dipak Fakey. He invites SSEHV practitioners to contact him if they would like information on how to stage a similar event in their own area as he has resources available to share.

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Teaching Vacancies in 'Miracle School' of Zambia

The Sathya Sai School in Ndola, Zambia, winner of the International Star Award in the Gold Category for achievement, leadership and innovation, is currently recruiting volunteer teachers. The 600-pupil school, which was founded in 1993, has been labelled a 'Miracle School' by the Zambian media and government because of its policy of admitting students rejected from other schools due to poor academic performance and behaviour, and its consistent ability to dramatically transform these individuals into excellent students achieving the best results of any school in the country.

Some of the older girl students

Teachers are now sought in the following areas:

Primary School
Secondary (High School) from Form 1 to 5 (GCE ‘O’ Level) from January 2006:
- English
- Mathematics
- Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology)
- Geography and ICT

The medium of instruction is English and the School follows the UK National Curriculum, according to the statutory framework of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Zambia.

Volunteers must pay their own travel expenses to Ndola. They will benefit from a free two-bedroom detached house, including water, electricity, a house maid, a gardener and a subsistence allowance to cover food, etc. which will be provided by the Sai Education Trust.

Anyone interested in this exciting and highly rewarding opportunity should send an email with CV and covering letter to Mr Victor Kanu.

View of the boys' campus

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New Values-Based Play Comes to Edinburgh Fringe

Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, a new musical comedy from the USA, based on the award winning illustrated children's book by Diane Stanley, will be making its European debut at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play will be showing at the Assembly Rooms from 6th-29th August (no show on 17th) at 10.50am daily.

Robert Neal Marshall, the show's author and director, contacted BISSE about it because it has "a strong message about giving of yourself to help others, using wisdom & kindness", and he felt it would be of interest to SSEHV practitioners.

"Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter" is a delightful 55 minute musical comedy for children of all ages, packed with comedy, action, adventure, dance & songs. Hailed as "a stylistic cross between Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' and Stephen Sondheim's 'Into The Woods' with broad humour, winning characters, an uplifting message and catchy tunes" by the Baltimore Sun, it features a modern, independent heroine who uses courage, intellect and wit to change a king and save an entire kingdom. Definitely one to catch if you're heading to the Festival this year!

More information and booking details are available at www.rumpelstiltskinsdaughter.com

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Training Update

Here is the feedback from one participant at an SSEHV Foundation Course:

"Participating in the Human Values course has made a lot of difference to the meaning of my life. It has given me a lot of encouragement, love and peace of mind. I highly recommend this course to everybody and anybody of any religious background. I wish I could find more words to describe this course … but love, peace, truth, right conduct, non-violence says it all!"

All SSEHV courses are free to attend, although a refundable photocopying deposit of £10 may be required at registration. Details of all our training courses, together with contact information and dates can be found on our website at www.ssehv.org.uk, in the Training section.

Forthcoming SSEHV courses are:

SSEHV Intenstive Parenting Workshop, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
24th-28th July 2005
For further information or to reserve a place, please contact Margaret Harris (01743 873650)

SSEHV Intensive Foundation Course, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
7th-12th August 2005
For further information or to reserve a place, please contact Margaret Harris (01743 873650)

SSEHV Parenting Workshop, Southsea, Hampshire
27th Sept - Session 1
4th Oct - Session 2
11th Oct - Session 3
18th Oct - Session 4
25th Oct - Session 5
1st Nov - Session 6
8th Nov - Session 7
For further information or to reserve a place, please contact Juliet Bell (023 9282 4892) or Simon Wade (01252 702765)

If there is no course scheduled in your area but you would like there to be one, we can arrange one as long as there are a minimum of ten people who would like to attend. Please contact Pamela Nash for more information.

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Calendar of Values Alive Events

The following Values Alive Events are currently recruiting volunteers:

24th - 27th July - Four day Values Alive Event, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Contact: Margaret Harris +44 (0) 1743 873650

26th - 30th July - Five day Values Alive Event, Wembley, North West London
Contact: Joyce Power +44 (0)20 8723 9916

28th July - 1st August - Five day Values Alive Event, Oldham, Greater Manchester
Contact: Barbara Edmondson +44 (0)1282 429233

12th - 16th September (tbc) - Five day Values Alive Event, Burnley, Lancashire
Contact: Barbara Edmondson +44 (0)1282 429233

If you would like to volunteer at a Values Alive Event, please contact your local Regional Co-ordinator. Opportunities are available to both SSEHV trained and non-trained volunteers. If you can attend for the duration of an event, that is preferable, but it is not a requirement. If you just want to come for a day to see how it feels, that's fine too.

Accommodation can usually be arranged free of charge for volunteers travelling long distances - please discuss with the event co-ordinator. Volunteers' children are invited to join in the event too. New volunteers may be required to attend a briefing meeting before the start of an event. Help will be provided with formalities such as police checking, and all relevant information and support will be provided.

If you would like your child or children to attend one of the Events, please contact the relevant co-ordinator for further information.

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STORY

Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama, USA, the daughter of a newspaper editor. In 1882, at the age of 19 months, she caught a fever which left her blind, deaf and unable to speak. Before the fever she had been a bright, healthy child, just learning to talk. Now she was cast into a dark world where she could no longer see or hear.

Deprived of the normal ways of learning, Helen soon began to explore the world by using her other senses. She followed her mother wherever she went by hanging onto her skirts. She touched and smelled everything she came across and felt other people's hands to see what they were doing. She copied their actions and soon the little girl was able to do certain jobs herself, like milking the cows and kneading dough. She even learnt to recognise people by feeling their faces or their clothes. She could also tell where she was in the garden by the smell of the different plants and the feel of the ground beneath her feet.

By the age of seven years she had invented over sixty different signs by which she could 'talk' to her family. If she wanted bread, for example, she would pretend to cut a loaf and butter the slices. If she wanted ice-cream she wrapped her arms around herself and pretended to shiver. So, by her own efforts, she was beginning to make some sense of an alien and confusing world.

Soon she began to learn about conversation. She noticed that other people used their mouths and throats to communicate. She realised they were using sound. Sometimes she stood between two people and touched their lips. Of course, she could not understand what they said and she could not make any meaningful sounds herself. Frustration with her inability to understand her world adequately increased to such a degree that she became wild and unruly. At this point, at the age of seven years, her parents hired a teacher for Helen. Twenty-five year old Anni Sullivan came from a poor background and had herself been blind before two successful eye operations had restored her sight, so she had a good understanding of the cut-off world that Helen inhabited, as well as a strong desire to dedicate herself to this new task.

The big breakthrough for Annie and Helen came when one day, Annie led Helen to the water pump and pumped water onto Helen's hand. As she did so, she spelt out the individual letters, WATER, on Helen's palm. Helen suddenly realised these individual signs represented the thing she had just felt - water. In the same instant, she also realised that everything else in the world must also have a name, must also be represented by a collection of signs. Helen rushed about touching anything she could find and asking Annie what it was called. In this way, she learnt that everything is represented by a set of symbols - a word! From this revelation came the next step - that a collection of words can represent something intangible - an idea.

Annie was careful to teach Helen about those subjects in which she was interested. The two of them would wander through the fields discussing whatever ideas came into Helen's mind. In this way, Annie managed to keep Helen intensely interested in a wide range of subjects. It also meant they could pursue a number of exciting hobbies, such as sailing and tobogganing.

And so, through Annie/s love and persistence, Helen started to grow and thrive. She became gentler and by the age of ten she had learned to read and write in Braille. She also learnt to read people's lips by pressing her finger tips against them and feeling the movement and vibrations. This method is called Tadoma, a skill very few manage to acquire. She also learnt to speak, a major achievement for someone who could not hear at all.

There followed a period of further education for Helen in Boston and New York, which Annie also attended as Helens guide and interpreter. In 1904, she graduated from Radcliffe College with honours, having studied German, Latin, arithmetic, history and English literature. While still at college, she wrote 'The Story of my Life'. This was an immediate success and earned her enough money to buy her own house.

Helen then turned her attention to welfare work and politics. In 1909, she joined the Socialist Party, supporting women's suffrage and birth control. She also opposed the use of child labour and capital punishment. She helped set up the American Foundation for the Blind. She worked tirelessly for the rest of her life, writing appeals and making fund-raising tours all over the world.

Through almost all this time Annie was still at Helen's side, helping and guiding her. It was through her caring and love for Helen, through her persistence and patience, that Helen had been able to develop the will to conquer her disability and break through the fetters of her lonely world to take her place as a contributing individual. Today, the agency, Helen Keller International, is one of the biggest organisations working with blind people overseas. Although Helen died in 1968, her story still continues to inspire people today.

Questions:
1. What name would you give this story?
2. What happened to Helen Keller at the age of 19 months?
3. Why was it difficult for her to learn to speak?
4. What was the effect of her difficulties on her behaviour?
5. What is the skill of Tadoma?
6. What were Annie Sullivan's good qualities?
7. What were Helen Keller's good qualities?
8. How did you feel when you heard the story?
9. Did it remind you of anything in your own life?

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