It's a great program run by Young Americans Bank to teach junior high children about global economics.
They had training for the last month or so, learning about different countries. They had job interviews for the positions they were interested in. Conner was the president of Egypt and Chase was a carpenter in Finland.
Scott was off work for the day and he watched the 3 younger kids while I volunteered there. I'm glad I was able to attend. It's set up so neat. They have several countries represented and each has its own area. They put 3-4 kids in each country and they run it. They each have a job and receive a salary which is in the currency of their country. One position is the president, one is the finance minister, one is the custom agent and one is an artisan.
They get 2 breaks during the day in which they can leave their country and visit the others. They have to go purchase a passport in Egypt before they do anything else. Then they can go to Singapore to exchange their money.
Each country had souvenirs to sell. For example, Costa Rica had paper flowers and butterflies; China had green tea and fortune cookies; Egypt sold chocolate pyramids and plastic snakes. So the kids could go around on their breaks and purchase items, either to eat or as a souvenir to take home.
They also had peace-keepers. These were kids that monitored everything and if they saw a law being broken (running, chewing gum, eating outside of the designated areas, traveling without a passport), they wrote the person a ticket. Then that person had to go to a tribunal which was comprised of the country presidents. They then decided if the person was guilty or innocent and how much to fine them.
It was a long, fun day. Next year they get to do Ameritowne which I hear is even more fun.
Chase in the garb of Finland
Conner as president of Egypt
Exchanging currency
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Costa Rica
Finland
Mexico
Egypt
One of the countries also worked on producing a little newspaper we got to bring home, and one country did interviews and a little video:
Chase as a Peace Keeper
The Tribunal members
2 comments:
Looks like a really fun day! I'm so glad you were able to participate in that experience!
That's AWESOME! But, I still don't get who put this on. Was this through your co-op?
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