Postcrossing Blog

We have mentioned before how Postcrossing as a school project can be a great idea. Teachers all over the world are discovering how to use Postcrossing as an educational tool. English, geography, culture – there’s so much one can learn through postcards!

Adriana Salim is one of those teachers and we are happy to be able to share with you all how her experience has been.

I am an English teacher at a public school in Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil. I teach classes to teenagers who keep me busy trying to get them interested and motivated. The dean of the school where I work found out about Postcrossing and here we are, the students and I, involved in sending and receiving cards.

I surely couldn’t have run into something more helpful! Everybody waits anxiously for the mail and the school mailbox is checked every single day. Isn’t it fun to learn English this way? Each student is a single user. They write and receive their own cards. Our enthusiasm has also hooked the Biology teacher who has joined Postcrossing with his own kids at home.

We have many projects at the school: theater, dance, environment protection, reading and Postcrossing! Some of the students take part in more than one project.

Before Postcrossing, the students used to swap cards among themselves to practice their English skills. Nowadays we realise that it’s much more fun to write real postcards with Postcrossing.

This is where we have our Postcrossing meetings once a week.

Our postcards are mailed to the school address. The mail is always brought by the same mailman. We go to the main post office downtown for stamps. We usually post our cards once a week at a smaller facility. The students keep their own cards at home in albums or on a wallboard. Now and then we display all the received cards at school.

This is our mailman delivering some mail and the school mailbox.

This is the board we keep the cards sent to the group as a whole.

This is the main post office where we buy stamps.

We once had a picture of the cards exhibition we prepared to celebrate the 18th anniversary of our school on the first page of Petrópolis newspaper.

As part of that commemoration a school postcard was created and is now available to be send by the students.

Thank you Adriana for sharing this with us!

Have other stories on how Postcrossing is being used on education? Then let us know! We love to hear about them.

On April 22nd it will be Earth Day 2010 and, in a time when climate change is becoming more serious than ever, it’s important to not let this day go by unnoticed.

Postcrossing is collaborating with students in Tuvalu in a very special event around the Earth Day 2010 in which you can participate too – and it’s really easy, read on.

But first, for the ones who may don’t know where the country Tuvalu is, here’s a short summary from its Wikipedia page:

Tuvalu

Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls. Its population of 12,373 makes it the third-least-populated sovereign state in the world.

From all the important facts about Tuvalu, there’s something particularly important that you should: due to global warming and the rising of sea-level, there are predictions that in the next 50 years the entire population will have to be evacuated. The ocean can swallow Tuvalu whole, making it the first country to be wiped off the map by climate change! Isn’t that scary?

Tuvalu students certainly think it is, and so do we. Postcrossing is proudly collaborating with them in this year Earth Day to help spread their word about how important it is to reflect and act upon climate change. The project is called “Send Tuvalu to the world” and consists on sending 422 postcards to all over the world sharing their thoughts about Tuvalu. The students organized a painting contest to draw a special stamp to be used in all the postcards, so these are very special indeed.

How would like to receive one of these postcards from the remote islands of Tuvalu? We know many of you would, so here’s how:

Just leave a comment on this Postcrossing blog post saying you would like one. We will then select the receivers from the first users of each country until we reach the needed 422 addresses. There are many possible slots for each country, so be sure to leave a comment! We will then share your address with the organization of this event in Tuvalu and the students will send your way one of this very special postcards.

It’s really simple to participate. But also very important, is to be aware – more than ever – about climate change, what it is doing to our planet, and what we should do about it.

Not long ago, Postcrossing collaborated with UNICEF Poland and their “Cards full of life” anniversary by helping their cards travel all around the world. This has been so successful that they asked us to publish an open letter to thank all Postcrossers:

Dear Postcrossing Friends!

As you all know, our “Send a Card Full of Life” campaign started in November last year and immediately caught attention of people from all over the world. UNICEF cards quickly began to cross country borders, seas and oceans and carry our message to all people – sending a UNICEF card is not only a great way to stay in touch with your friends and loved ones, share emotions and thoughts, but most of all it is a simple and effective way to support our work for children.

Cards full of life success wouldn’t be possible without YOUR help and commitment. You gave our cards the first spin, helped us spread the word and send our cards to all continents. You posted photos of you and your cards on our website, commented our news on Cards Full of Life Facebook Fan Page and even contacted us on our email address to get more information on UNICEF and UNICEF cards. What started as a UNICEF Poland project, quickly became a worldwide game.

Your involvement and will to help is overwhelming and while our campaign continues, you still are with us, sending UNICEF cards every day.

We are very grateful for all that each one of you have done for UNICEF.

THANK YOU Postcrossing!

UNICEF Poland Team
Warsaw, 24.03.2010

At Postcrossing HQ we are always looking for ways to do good through postcards. Today we are happy to share with you a simple but very powerful way to ignite big smiles.

Hearts in Unity is an organization working towards improving the life of orphan and at-risk children in Tanzania. Through several projects, they aim to feed, clothe and give access to education to Tanzanian children as well as tell the world more about this African country, one of the worlds’ poorest with over 2 million orphans.

One of Hearts in Unity projects is Messages from the Heart which consists in bringing heart-felt messages of greetings, friendship and encouragement to Tanzanian children. And what better medium for that than a postcard?

The Hearts in Unity representatives in Tanzania hand-delivers those messages to those who need them most, many in remote villages where there isn’t even postal delivery services. This is the only way for some of those children to have contact with postcards and receive greetings from somewhere else in the world.

We believe this is a great match for Postcrossers, who understand what a postcard can do to lift our spirits and bring some encouragement.

If you wish to participate in this cause, this is the address where you can send postcards to:

Hearts in Unity
P.O. Box 6497
Moshi, Kilimanjaro
TANZANIA

For sending anything other than postcards such as parcels, donations or enquiries, please use this address instead:

Hearts in Unity
“Messages from the Heart”  
P.O. Box 41
Germantown, WI  53022
USA

You can use this address as well if you are in U.S.A. and wish to save some postage. The correspondence will be forwarded to Hearts Tanzanian representatives as well.

If you need ideas about what to write, or even how to write a message in Swahili, check Messages from the heart project page.

Please note, that Tanzanian children don’t have a way to send postcards back – an international stamp can cost more than half of a family’s average daily wage in Tanzania. However, Hearts in Unity also has a penpal project. In fact, they have many other projects, so be sure to check their website: http://www.heartsinunity.org/.

"In 1947 a young Czechoslovakian girl called Jitka Samkova painted a colourful picture of children dancing around a maypole in the sunshine. She sent it as a thank you to a newly-created organisation called UNICEF which had provided milk and medicine to the children of her war-ravaged village.

UNICEF – or the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund as it was originally known – was set up after World War II to help children such as Jitka in countries across Europe and the Middle East, and in China. Many children were suffering from hunger and extreme hardship following the war, particularly in the harsh winter of 1946–7. Then, as today, UNICEF supplied these vulnerable children with life-saving supplies of food, blankets and medicine.

Jitka’s cheerful painting was to become famous. In 1949, it was reproduced on the first official UNICEF greeting card. A controversial idea at the time, it was to prove a huge success."

(from the UNICEF site)

Sixty years have passed since their first card was made, and on this “Cards Full of Life” anniversary, UNICEF Poland has launched a campaign to spread 1000 cards around the world – and track their progress as they hop from destination to destination, spreading the word about this wonderful initiative.

And you can be part of it too! There are still 100 cards left to be released, and UNICEF has decided to partner with Postcrossing to get these cards traveling around the world!

Think you can send these postcards on a looooong journey? Leave a comment below! We’ll collect the addresses of the first 100 commenters on this post (only one comment per address please), and send them to UNICEF, who will then mail you your UNICEF card. Remember, these cards have a journey of awareness to fulfill, and you will be responsible for sending them onwards on their trip. Where to? Your choice! Keep them moving, spread the word! :)

PS – Not one of the lucky 100? Don’t worry! You can track any UNICEF card you buy at UNICEF’s shop on their site, and start your own chain!