See It: The Community being helped

I work as a teacher for the New Orthodox School in semi-rural Madaba, Jordan. Last year, the priest here decided to hire someone to start an extension of the British Council's English-langauge courses here - the first time that these classes are being offerend outside the capital city of Amman. I am one of the first Americans to committ to working with this interfaith (Madaba has a large Christian population) group of young people and adults who come from a whole range of socioeconomic backgrounds, including a variety of grade- and high-schools. The program is hugely successful because it isn't run like a business but as a community service. Tuition is kept low, scholarships are given out based on financial need despite all the varied factors mentioned above, and 98% of the students passed their exams for a Cambridge Certificate in English last year. Despite this success, and the addition of another young American woman here to provide the students (and their parents, who are often also enrolled in classes!) with exposure to another native speaker, the school is sorely lacking materials. The walls are empty or filled in with pencil drawings instead of posters, the school has only two shelves of English-language books and the students are hungry for more. During April, May, and June - the end of the school year - we want to create an English language club. This will be the school's first weekly extracurricular organization and give our pupils a much-needed chance to practice their English more often. We can play football and basketball IN ENGLISH - read stories and do book reports, something they don't even do in their native language - put on plays - watch and discuss English-language films ... but this will require a bit of equpitment and a bit of funding for snacks because students usually rush home after the 7am-1:30pm school day for lunch.