The student population at Newark Collegiate Academy is 96% African American, 4% Hispanic, and 79% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Only 9% of Newark residents have Bachelor’s degrees. After working closely with the Indiana University students all year, college will become a reality for the students in Newark. Through this program students at Newark will be able to talk and become friends with a student or students at Indiana University’s Global Village. This will be the perfect connection for them, someone who they can ask anything about college life. In mid November Students from Newark will be visiting the Global Village for a long weekend. During this time they will be able to experience college life. It is so very important for these students to see why college is so important, they come from a background where only 9% of Newark residents graduate college.

Books & Beyond will engage students from Newark, New Jersey and Indiana University in authoring, illustrating, publishing and marketing a collection of children's stories. The books produced will then be used as a teaching text for students at the Kabwende Primary School in Rwanda. The goal of Books and Beyond is for students from Indiana University's Global Village Living Learning Center to be paired up and mentor a high school student from Newark Collegiate Academy. Students from Newark Collegiate Academy go to school 6 days a week and in the summer, they are from the lower socio economic background and 79% of them receive free or reduced lunch. Through this program these students will form ties with the Global Villagers to realize that college is attainable. The Global Villagers and Newark students are also responsible for creating their own children’s story together and publishing them as a collection of stories We hope to be able to send our books and bookmaking supplies to Rwanda in the hopes that they will write their own stories send them back. Once they send the stories back we will publish them and sell to raise more money to keep this project going. The main focus of this service learning project is education. We hope that the Newark Collegiate Academy students get fired up about college; in November it is planned that students from Newark Collegiate are going to visit the Global Village for an extended weekend. During this time they will be able to get a real taste of college life, the idea of college will become more solidified for them. There will be learning from both sides as we hope that the Global Villagers will learn how to be good mentors. Also by becoming involved with the primary school in Rwanda we hope to bridge the gap to English literacy in Rwanda.

When Oprah opened her school in South Africa, the students at the TEAM Academy middle school in Newark, NJ turned to the their teacher and said," Ms. Nagle, why can't we open a school in Africa?" Nancy Uslan, who attended Indiana University, had just gotten back from traveling through Rwanda and felt compelled to help the country in some way. She met Ali Nagle and suggested starting a pen pal program between TEAM and the Kabwende Primary School in Rwanda. At the same time Uslan became acquainted with Jeff Holdeman, the Director of Indiana University's Global Village Living Learning Center. The goal of the Global Village is to promote global understanding and awareness. Uslan felt there could be a potential relationship between TEAM and Indiana University so she introduced Ms. Nagle to Mr. Holdeman. From there Ali and Lauren Caldarera, Assistant Director of the Global Village, started talking. It was not until Fall 2008 that the project had started to take off. Currently there are 29 Global Villagers who have signed up and 16 Newark Academy students. The 29 Global Village students are going through mentor training and will be matched with their mentee at the beginning of November. Our biggest problem so far has been how we are going to afford the technology to communicate over long distances in the US and production costs to print the books. We are in the process of getting everything organized and brainstorming fundraising ideas. Other problems that have arisen are how are we going to communicate with each other and how exactly are we going to help the primary school in Rwanda? As of now we are going to have weekly chat sessions online between the mentors and mentees in the US. We hope to be able to buy a few webcams so that the interactions can be more personal. Realizing that there are 2000 students at the Kabwende Primary School and only 500 textbook we have decided to author and illustrate children’s books as the best way to increase the Rwanda students English literacy skills and give each student a text book to have as their own. In addition to sending the books to Rwanda we plan on selling copies in the US to make money to continue the project and support the efforts for education at the Kabwende Primary School