TIME TO RISE
For 18 years, Harpeth Hall has served as a host for the YMCA-affiliated Time to Rise summer enrichment program for at-risk students from Nashville public schools. Time to Rise's mission is to help students in grades four to six "improve their life chances through academic excellence and character development." Each year approximately 30 rising fifth-grade girls, selected by their teachers and counselors for their motivation, school attendance, and parent support, enroll in four weeks of core academic classes taught by Harpeth Hall teachers and high school students hired as class instructors and camp counselors respectively. In addition to the core classes offered each summer, Harpeth Hall's teachers have designed several STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subject electives to encourage the girls to explore areas of study to which they may have had limited access. Among these classes are "Cooking with Chemistry" and the "World at Your Feet," which introduce students to lab and field-based scientific inquiry. In addition to academic classes, the camp program includes field trips and other enrichment and recreational activities. As a host site for young girls, Harpeth Hall's goal is that the participating students leave the School's campus excited about learning and inspired by the close relationships developed with their teachers and counselors. As one of the campers said last year, "I love the classes. This is my favorite part of the school year... and it's during the summer!"
LWALA COMMUNITY ALLIANCE PARTNERSHIP
Harpeth Hall and the Lwala Community Alliance created a strategic partnership in 2011 to strengthen girls' education in Lwala, Kenya, a rural village in Western Kenya, and provide learning and service opportunities for Harpeth Hall students. Brothers Milton and Fred Ochieng', who are natives of Lwala, founded the Lwala Community Alliance. During medical school at Vanderbilt University, the brothers began to raise the funds to start a clinic in Lwala. In April 2007, the Lwala Community Health Center opened. Over time, the program has expanded to include small scale micro-finance, public health outreach, water and sanitation, and women's education programming.
Harpeth Hall is committed to strengthening women's education across the globe and is enthusiastic about embarking on this partnership with the Lwala Community Alliance. This year, a Harpeth Hall senior traveled to Lwala during Winterim to open the doors for a deeper relationship between the two schools. Ten students and two faculty chaperones will travel to Lwala during Winterim 2013 to work in partnership with the young women of Lwala.
Harpeth Hall students hosted two benefits to raise funds for the Lwala Community Alliance. In February, Upper School students hosted a city-wide Dodgeball Tournament in which 18 teams from area high school competed and learned of the barriers to education for young women in Lwala. In March, Harpeth Hall hosted a benefit concert, "Celebrating Women Around the World," in the Frances Bond Davis Theatre. For the concert, the School commissioned a new choral piece, Msilale Wanawake, by well-known composers Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory, funded by the Harpeth Hall Parents Association. As the Middle and Upper School choirs sang and the Upper and Middle School orchestras performed the music, members of the Upper School Dance Company performed an original dance to accompany the new work. To view the performance of Msilale Wanawake, visit the Harpeth Hall Vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/channels/harpethhall.
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