Teachers For Peace

The story of Teachers for Peace in 300 words.     

This story starts with a group of women  teacher entrepreneurs trying to live their  best lives,  doing what they love, teaching.   We are a group of women just like you, we are scattered all over the world, Europe and Asia, south America, North America. Teaching English the best way we can, in a fun and motivational way.  Using games and songs with the goal of making learning fun and lasting.    We are all  connected by one thing, the method and mentality we use to teach English as a foreign language.   The Genki English method, created by Richard Graham.   

In a nutshell; “Genki is a Japanese word without a direct English translation. It roughly means having energy, pep, or health, the kanji 元気 mean “original spirit” or good health and high vigor. The term 元気 was used in ancient China, to refer to a primal energy that makes up all things.”  -and that is just what genki english is, a method of teaching English with energy, pep and health.      Making learning fun and enticing children to love learning and be part of this global world that we live in.  

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how being a Genki English teacher would change my life.    But it did.    I opened my own school - I grew my little school into a middle size school,  I learned how to market myself, how to organize myself, and I made friends with other like minded school owners and English teachers - who were just like me.    Trying to live their best life ever.    When covid hit we all stuck together and shared our experiences,  with the coaching of Richard graham we all successfully kept our schools afloat.   Many of us thrived as we jumped online and started doing hybrid classes.          

On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine.     It was heartbreaking, Olha a friend from our Genki group was in the Ukraine. So we reached out to her and asked her how we could help.   She was still in shock and her husband was about to go  to war!  It was not safe where she was so she was going to go to her mothers house in the west of Ukraine. We  asked her what we could do, donations, medicine, money.     She said, that she was worried about her kids and her students, that no one knew what was happening, and they were preparing for everything,   it would be great if we  could give some free classes to the children.  Give them a place to login to and be distracted and educationally entertained.   This would give the mothers peace of mind as well and maybe bring a smile to their faces.    And so,  TEACHERS FOR PEACE, began.      

We started classes the following Tuesday, March 1st.     When we started it was only the Genki teachers, now coordinators of teachers for peace.      We were in emergency mode,   We raced to open a zoom account and we penciled down what time each of us could teach and we sent out the zoom link.      We started with 1 student and by the end of the day had 9.   The students who joined stayed online till the end of the day.  The next day we logged in and we had 10 students right from the start. Again the students stayed on all day-  no matter the activity or lesson.  On day 3 we had 68 students.  On day 4 we had 100 students - that is the official limit of students  for the zoom classroom.   So we started advertising for teachers.     Little by little, our little collective became bigger and bigger.

It has now been 5 months.   Teachers for peace continues to offer free lessons.  We have now branched out and begun teaching the women.  Women who are in Ukraine and women who are starting anew abroad.    Our goal is to give them a place to feel empowered, supported and above all not alone.