action!!!

Take a look on this e-mail  from my friend Arn, member of the West Virginia Chapter. It tells a lot.

1) Educator Exchange Program - We will be hosting 2 English school teachers from Castelo in ES. One is the owner of Stand Up Idiomas School (Silvia Farias) and one is a teacher (Liamara Panini). Liamara has already received her B-1 VISA and Silvia goes to the US Consulate in Rio for her interview tomorrow (12/1). They hope to arrive here the end of December and will stay until early February.



For this program, there is nothing you need to do to provide support. John Carper proposed and sponsored the program and the gals will stay with John and Sue while here. Robin will set up teaching ... observation ... cultural presentation opportunities for these educators at Sissonville area schools while they are here. When, at some later date, we send a teacher or two to ES, we may ask that you help meet them at the airport ... but I suspect that they will spend most of their time up in the mountains near Castelo.


2) Sissonville High School (Second) Student Visit to ES - We are planning a second trip to ES in June, 2012, for 4-6 students plus 2 chaperones (probably Robin and Jerry). I know we have discussed this in the past, but I want to make certain that it is still OK with you.

Because of airfare cost considerations, we have tentatively plan on leaving Charleston on a Wednesday or Thursday in June (13 or 14) ... arriving the next day of course in ES, with a Vitoria departure on the second Sunday (24th) with a Sunday evening layover in Rio and a departure from Galeao International Airport on Monday evening. Of course, we will not set firm dates until we have your comments and you confirm that our planned dates will work for our ES Partners. If it better meets your personal schedule, we could probably move the visit back by one week (6th or 7th) and still get the "out-of-season" airfares. I believe flight prices go up (flying south to Brazil) around the 15th of June.


Like the last SHS group we sent, they will need airport pickup and departure arrangements, local transportation, meals, housing and activities (with any local school or group that the ES partners might choose to work with).


The WV Partners and SHS will be looking forward to greeting a youth or other group from ES in the future to provide a similar warm welcome and hosting arrangement.