We believe every child should have a Golestan experience. For this reason, we developed the Colab as a pro bono resource and consultancy for parents and educators across the globe.
Visit from an Ashoka Fellow from India
In April 2019, Deep Jyoti Sonu Brahma, and Ashoka Fellow and founder of Farm2Food Foundation was a guest of Sharon Danks of Green Schoolyard America and visited Golestan to learn about our program.
A site visit from Dr. Saya Shiriash from Japan!
In September 2017, Dr. Shiriashi, a cultural anthropologist visited Golestan to learn about our unique approach to education.
Green School Yards Principle Institute tours our Golestan Schoolyard
One of the organizations the Colab collaborates with is Green Schoolyards America, a national organization focused on inspiring and enabling communities across the United States to enrich their school grounds and use them to improve children’s well-being, learning and play. In April 2016, members of the Green School Yards Principles Institute visited our Golestan schoolyard to see our “living and green” schoolyard.
IAAB Persian Language Educator’s Symposium
In May 2015, Golestan had the honor to host the second IAAB Persian Language Educators’ Symposium. Over fifty educators from around the country (and one from Canada) gathered to collaborate and share best practices. The ED of Golestan/Colab, Yalda Modabber held two workshops; one workshop shared best practices for teacher training and another workshop focused on hands-on methods for teaching language.
We ended our day with a garden party hosted by Golestan Colab and IAAB.
Below is Yalda and Colab members: (from left to right) Bahar Kids (Irvine), Ferdows Kids (Toronto), and Boostan Kids (San Mateo)
A special visitor from Nepal!
In September 2016, Bikash, the program supervisor and head teacher from Sunsar Maya Nepal, travelled 13,000 miles from Kathmandu to Berkeley, California. The purpose of the trip was for him to receive training at Golestan and go back and share what he learned with the staff at Sunsar Maya, and to help raise the educational standard even more for the underprivileged children attending the Sunsar Maya after school program.
Bikash spent several days observing our after school program. During his time here, Golestan Colab planned extensive training both at Golestan and with experts in the field of education from within the Golestan Network, including the opportunity to sit in an OT session, an art class and a second grade classroom!
We connected him with Jen Burkes, an amazing art teacher. Bikash got a chance to observe her in action, teaching her class at YAZ. We also coordinated a visit and tour of the Edible Schoolyards gardens and kitchen. We hope it will inspire gardening and cooking in the SuMa afterschool! We look forward to future collaborations and seeing the children of SuMa afterschool flourish even more with Bikash’s help.
Joint Project between Sunsar Maya Kids in Nepal and Golestan Kids in Berkeley: What do you love about your country?
In April 2016, one of the countries our kids learn about is Nepal. This year, we asked the kids at the Sunsar Maya after school program (one of the organizations the Colab supports) to draw what they love about their country. Once we received their drawings, we printed them out and shared them with the children at Golestan. In return our kids drew what they love about their country or hometown to share with the kids in Nepal.
Our kids really enjoyed seeing the drawings. They were so curious and examined each drawing with much attention!