International Project Comparing Family Food Cultures Launches

Learning Life, a Washington DC-based educational nonprofit, is launching a new international family-t0-family project to explore family food cultures across the world.

Food culturesLearning Life’s flagship program, the Citizen Diplomacy Initiative (CDI), engages lower-income American families, starting in Ward 8 of Washington DC, in live internet dialogues and project collaborations with lower-income families in other countries of the world to nurture more caring, capable global citizens.  Last year, eight families in DC, Dakar, Senegal, and Jerash, Jordan engaged in an international community photo project.  That project revealed intriguing differences in the foods the families eat, so this year, participating families will explore their own and another country’s food culture through interviews with our diverse volunteers, an immigrant or foreign guest, and a family in another country.

The project will unfold through five meetings, typically on weekends mornings or afternoons, with Learning Life volunteers at the participating families’ homes or online via Skype.  The project culminates with a live internet dialogue between selected American families in the USA, and families in El Salvador, Senegal and Jordan.

Sarr2Benefits of participation in CDI:

  1. Provides children and their parents/guardians the chance to bond by learning together.
  2. Helps participants learn more about themselves, their community, their country, and the world
  3. Gives families access to language interpreters and other volunteers who can help families learn better and access resources
  4. Offers an international experience that can help open doors to better schools and jobs.
  5. May boost children’s interest, confidence and performance in school and everyday life by increasing their knowledge, skill and engagement with the world.

To be eligible, families must have:

  1. Residence in selected locations in Washington DC, San Salvador, El Salvador, Dakar, Senegal and Jerash, Jordan.
  2. At least one parent or guardian and one or more children 10-18 willing to participate.
  3. Household income of less than their country’s annual median household income.
  4. Parents with less than a bachelor’s or four-year university degree.
  5. Traveled little or not at all outside their country, and have few if any contacts in other countries.

To learn more, contact us at email@learninglife.info.