The world of second & third graders in Sonoma County, California, is a far cry from that of Afghan children living in a refugee camp in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Joan McLain, a teacher at La Fiesta Elementary in Sonoma, decided to help bridge these worlds by engaging her class in a truly hands-on project: making a quilt to send to the children in the refugee camps. Her students jumped at the idea, and what started as a project about caring and connection soon evolved into an instrument of healing for everyone.

This creative undertaking at La Fiesta, as well as many others in schools across the US and Canada, began after the events of September 11 with the help of NetAid's partners, IMC and ICMC. Through NetAid's project, Kids Can Help, students put on their creative thinking caps and set to work on drawings, paintings, quilts and collages to send to the Afghan children. At La Fiesta, the collaborative quilt-making was backed by a little bit of research--and a lot of excitement. "The students learned about what kind of an ecosystem the Afghan children live in, and that it gets very cold at night," McLain says. "They felt the children in Afghanistan really needed something to keep them warm."

When McLain first learned about the project, she immediately thought this would help her students process their feelings about the events of September 11, and the related issues that arose in the following weeks and months. "Making the quilt was a way we could do something and show that we care," she says. After the class made the quilt and sent it to the refugee camp, they received a thrilling response: a package from the Afghan children that included dolls, letters and photos of themselves holding the quilt. In addition to the gifts and letters, however, the students received an unexpected lesson. "[My students] were shocked to see they had school in a tent," she says. "It had never occurred to them that [these children] didn't have soccer fields, playgrounds, and classrooms with windows."

The class spent time discussing the differences and similarities between the two groups of children--with surprising results. They noted surface differences, which were mostly surface-level. As one La Fiesta student revealed in her journal, "I learned that they do not have schools like we do; they don't have books or computers either." What they found most striking was the similarities in basic human needs, such as receiving an education. "Both groups of children are part of a learning community. We could presume that they probably learn reading, math, and some of the same things we do," says McLain.

McLain feels the overall project involved more than just making and sending a quilt to the Afghan refugee children. "It's important for all the children to feel they are part of a bigger world. This was a way for them to reach out," she explains. "[It also] enabled them to go through a healing process so they could feel they were not helpless."

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