Our Mission
The One Love Learning Foundation strives to enrich the public school educational experiences of children in under-privileged communities by feeding them in body, mind and soul through gardening, cultural exchange, and arts programs.
Our mission can be best understood in three components: Soil, Soul, and Society
Soil
By teaching children to nurture the soil and care for their natural environment, the Foundation equips them with the skills to meet their basic nutritional needs. Through the garden program, the children participate in growing their own food, which is then prepared and served for lunch. The children can then better apply their minds and energies to the important work of learning. Furthermore, they come to appreciate the value of stewardship and sustainability.
Soul
Through the music program, children build self-confidence as they learn to drum, dance, and sing together. They discover the joy of creative self-expression while developing a sense of community and teamwork as they rehearse performances for their peers overseas. Research confirms that music and the arts are integral to a child’s cognitive and social development, meaning that the children are building life skills as they are expressing their creativity.
Society
Finally, through the exchange, the children communicate with each other, asking questions about life in other countries and coming to better understand the world around them– what makes them unique as well as what unites them. Appreciating diversity, while celebrating unity. In performing their art together and for each other, the children learn to give and receive from others and appreciate their peers, creating bonds of understanding and peace across cultures and across the globe.
This work is grounded in a philosophy of unity: we believe that connecting children with each other and the earth opens opportunities and creates conscious, global citizens. Read more about our philosophy here.
By lifting up, strengthening, and educating the children we empower them to see beyond their immediate circumstances, dreaming big dreams and growing up to achieve them. They will become teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, nurses, engineers: the citizens and leaders that our global community so desperately needs. The work of the One Love Learning Foundation enriches their individual lives, but it also equips them to be the seed of transformative social change. With your support of this work, you can join us in opening the door to their dreams and ambitions, creating a better tomorrow for our global village.
While we are enormously proud of the contribution our projects have made, we aren’t even close to being done.