Shankles to join school dedication in Haiti

Rachel Shankles, longtime Lakeside librarian and now a faculty member of UCA, will accompany a team of 15 Alpha Delta Kappa Sorority of Women Educators from the U.S. to dedicate a secondary school building in Haiti that was finished in January.

The organization funded the building project in Haiti at the Imagine Missions Orphanage with donations and fundraising through its foundation over the last two years.

Selecting this proposal from among three presented to the membership in the summer of 2016 at Regional Conferences around the U.S., the sisters of ADK named it Project T.E.A.C.H. (Training, Educating and Affirming the Children of Haiti). The goal was $50,000 to add four high school classrooms to the existing orphanage near Port-au-Prince.

Over $56,000 has been raised to date and a new project will be selected in late March. Alpha Delta Kappa represents Excellence in Education, Altruism and World Understanding and has built two schools in Vietnam and one in Peru, plus supplied a complete book mobile worth over $80,000 to the Cheyenne Lakota Indians in South Dakota in past World Understanding projects.

While in Haiti March 5-9, Shankles will have the opportunity to work with the teachers, present professional development and discuss trends in American education with the 35 French Creole-speaking teachers at the mission school.

Shankles has been a member of this international honorary organization of women educators since 1982, serving at the local chapter level (Alpha Epsilon), as past Arkansas president and at the regional level as membership consultant this past biennium for Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. She is currently the World Understanding chair for the South Central Region.