Holiday Update from Milwaukee
We only had one Spanish class this week because of Christmas. The kids are on break until next week but they are still excited about Spanish classes and programming activities...which is awesome. They are really looking forward to the trip to Mexico in June.
We went to a local mall and the managers and store staff were gracious enough to allow us to examen the labels of all kind of items to see where they were manufactured. We had mini classes right in the stores. I went a few days before to search out which stores would be agreeable to the idea of kids picking up items and not expecting to buy. They were all great especially the WISCONSIN STORE.
After our searches and mini discussions in the store we found a relatively quiet place to discuss what they had learned. All the kids realized that most of the electronics were made in China and a lot of the clothes were made in South America--very observant for 12 and 13 year olds.
We discussed why some items say they are made in some other countries but the materials were from the US. I also mentioned to them that most of the work on these items were done by children not much older and sometimes younger then themselves as well as women because they were much cheaper labor than men and even cheaper than labor in the US. We also talked about why young people in the US are usually not allowed to work until they are at least 15 and some US history on labor laws for youth.
I hope to continue to stay on this path of child labor for a few more weeks if schedules work out. Well that is it for now.
Hope everyone had an eventful 2006.
Teneisha