In October 2010, the IBSF board initiated a new project for the Light Nursery and Primary School–a pen-pal project with students in the United States!

Upon receiving the first letters from the students in the U.S., Meredith Salinas took the letters out to the beach school on the November 2010 visit. Meredith took the time to explain how she introduced the project to the Primary 3 students at the beach school:

“Each letter had a picture of the child who wrote it, along with a letter explaining who he or she was and questions for the students at the beach school. Since the students at the beach school have not been to the U.S., I brought a globe to show the students where Nigeria is and where the U.S.  is to give them some idea of where the students were from who they, in turn, would be writing to. I prepared a chart explaining the different parts of a letter (date, greeting, body, closing and signature).  I also talked and gave examples of what the children should include in their letters and what types of questions they might want to ask the children from the U.S. We picked up the letters from the beach school in December 2010 and took them back to the U.S. where they were quickly sent to the students there. The students were so happy to hear from the children at Ishahayi  Beach that they immediately wrote back and we will be continuing the project by returning those letters to the children at Ishahayi. It is so fantastic how children from two completely different cultures have the opportunity to correspond with each other and learn what other children their age are doing half-way around the world.”