Pulitzer Center Brings Globalization to St. Louis

After months of preparation, Jon Sawyer, Nathalie Applewhite, and Stephanie Hanes from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in Washington, DC will be coming to St. Louis this week to meet with students and teachers in the Parkway School District as well as at St. Joseph's Academy, Collinsville High School, and Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School.

We are all aware of the schlock (yes, it's in the dictionary, "something of cheap or inferior quality; junk") that often characterizes today's mainstream news.  Fortunately, there are still some real journalists out there and among them is Jon Sawyer, director of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.  The Pulitzer Center was established several years ago with the expressed intent of covering under-reported international stories that are important in themselves and important to citizens of the United States.  Over the past two years the Center has covered over a dozen important stories from Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and elsewhere.

It is not only important to report the stories; it is important to have a broader audience.  As the Pulitzer Center contracts with a number of accomplished journalists and videographers, it is also working to expand its readership and viewership into a number of colleges, universities, high schools, and middle schools.  Fortunately, St. Louis is becoming the flagship for their high school and middle school outreach.

One of the projects that the Pulitzer Center is working on is the reclamation of the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique in southeast Africa.  The park was trashed during the civil war from 1975-1992, but due to a strong commitment and lots of dollars from an American philanthropist, it is being restored.  The sunshine story is not without its problems, but this is all being reported by the Pulitzer Center.

Director Jon Sawyer will be coming to St. Louis along with his assistant Nathalie Applewhite and Gorongosa reporter Stephanie Hanes from April 25 - 28.  Thanks to some terrific work by Parkway District Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Liz Morrison, they will be spending Thursday, April 26 in the Parkway district.  With tremendous support from KETC-TV Vice-President for Educational Services, Amy Shaw, Channel 9 will be creating a series of multi-purpose videos in part from the classes in the Parkway district that day.

This Friday, April 27, Jon, Nathalie, and Stephanie will be coming to St. Joseph's Academy (9:30 AM), Collinsville High School (12:00 Noon), and Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School (2:05 PM).  In all cases, they will be discussing the importance of the Gorongosa story and how it relates to students' lives.  Most importantly, they are open to taking any and all student questions.

Finally, on Saturday, April 28, all parties concerned will join together to sponsor a workshop for high school and middle school teachers who are interested in using the myriad of resources from the Pulitzer Center.  Invitations to teachers involved in Civitas programs were sent several weeks ago from Amy Shaw at KETC-TV (Channel 9).  If you misplaced the invitation, you can RSVP to Amy at [email protected].

Civitas has the pleasure of working with the Pulitzer Center and others on this project.  One of our projects is to work to prepare students and teachers and St. Joseph's, Collinsville, and Maplewood-Richmond Heights for the Pulitzer visits on Friday, April 27.  On April 2, we had an opportunity to meet with a terrific A.P. class at Collinsville taught by Mark Schusky and Barbara Lindauer.  Last Friday, April 20, we met with an equally outstanding group from St. Joseph's Academy taught by Jane Garvin.  And this morning we worked with another terrific group, this time at Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School and taught by Angelia Moore and Kelli Best-Oliver.  We truly appreciate their fine interest, questions, and most importantly, understanding of the need to focus on stories such as Gorongosa.  Photos (taken by Collinsville student Leslie Miller) are available by clicking here.

Also, a number of students from St. Louis high schools have been communicating on the Gorongosa blog with journalist Stephanie Hanes.  You can access their questions and comments as well as Stephanie's fine responses by clicking here.

For more photos of class visits to St. Joseph's Academy and Maplewood-Richmond Heights (as well as previously to Collinsville), click here.

Below is another map that hopefully will help you identify the area within the context of the central portion of St. Louis County.

The reasons why we are so interested in this area are many, but three that come to mind immediately are: (1) most of it is scheduled for demolition in the next year as a new development takes shape.  Many people will be moving out; many moving in. (2) The neighborhood is adjacent to Highway 40 (I-64) and it will have to endure many of the hardships of everyone along the immediate corridor of the construction the highway over the next three years or more, and (3) the neighborhood is immediately north of where a similar community was uprooted five years ago to make room for a Wal-Mart, Lowe's, and a host of smaller retail outlets.  With the Hadley Township area, Civitas can provide students with an opportunity to observe and possibly influence a wholesale change of a long-standing neighborhood in our community.  The project will begin this April and Civitas' involvement will continue for a number of years.

This is one of our busiest weeks ever with the Middle School model U.N. as we have three sessions.  All will take place at the Creve Coeur Government Center, 300 No. New Ballas Road; 63141 (map).

On Wednesday, April 25, we will have students representing Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School, North Kirkwood Middle School, and St. Dominic Savio School.  Resolutions have been submitted on (a) sweatshops, (b) genocide, (c) human trafficking, (d) clean drinking water, and (e) AIDS.

On Thursday, April 26, we will have students from Hixson Middle School (Webster Groves), North Kirkwood Middle School, and St. Gabriel's School.  Resolutions have been submitted on (a) global warming, (b) child soldiers, (c) genocide, (d) child labor, (e) and human rights.

On Friday, April 27, we will have students from Hixson Middle School (Webster Groves), North Kirkwood Middle School, and Queen of All Saints.  Resolutions have been submitted on (a) AIDS orphans, (b) genocide, (c) living conditions in dictatorships, (d) child abuse, (e) education, and (f) HIV/AIDS.

We want to remind all teachers that there will be lane closures on Highway 40 (I-64) this week as well as cross-streets.  Please check these out.  We have notified First Student Bus Company of these.

Next week, we will also have sessions on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.