Pangaea Project 2010

Mr Ian Crittenden is the founder and president of the Malawi Pangaea Project Council in Furnace Brook Middle School Marshfield, Massachusetts. 2010 honor roll student

 When one throws a stone into a pond, it doesn’t affect just the spot it touches; it expands its reach beyond itself in ever-widening circles. Mr. Isa Ebowe is just such a stone. In 2008, he dropped himself into our world at Furnace Brook Middle School. Two short years later, he’s managed to expand his circles of hope and touch hundreds of lives. 

Mr. Ebowe’s story about the Malawian children affected by HIV/AIDS had a profound effect on me. It compelled me to become another of Mr. Ebowe’s rings. The ripples of the Malawi Pangaea Project continue to expand. The first year, the main goal of the students at my school, or so we thought, was to raise money and supplies for the orphaned children of Malawi. But really it was to connect with the children, to reconnect the continents of Africa and America as they were once united in the ancient super-continent of Pangaea.  

We did raise money and educational materials, but the truly remarkable and most rewarding part was the video-conference. To see the children whom we were helping and the hope and joy in their faces was an inexplicable feeling. They inspired me, they gave me hope.  

My goal in life is to change the world positively. In America, it’s hard to contemplate the kind of suffering and hopelessness that is so common elsewhere. But I have learned that in facing these hard realities, and working to address them, there are in fact rewards.

 Next year I’m heading off to the high school. I plan to bring the Malawi Pangaea Project with me. I intend to do the same when I go to college and on and on for the rest of my life.  

Most ever-widening circles disperse, but these ones won’t.

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