Source for Pen Pals in ex-USSR

Anyone who is interested in corresponding with a pen pal in either the
Baltics or CIS should contact our organization, SAPE (called "The
Soviet-American Penfriend Exchange" prior to 1991). We have a website
at:

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/6689/
in case of difficulty due to web traffic, try our mirror site at:
http://www.1webplaza.com/sape/sape.html

The site contains our general info, goals, teacher reference letters,
stories of SAPE pen pals who have met in person, as well as info on how
to become involved. If you do not have web access, our email,
snail-mail, phone and fax info is listed at the end of this message.

SAPE's goal is to match people in the Baltics/CIS with pen pals in other
countries (esp. the USA) for the purpose of cultural exchange,
friendship, and foreign language practice. Since 1989 we've matched more
than 35,000 pairs of penpals. Many of the Baltic/CIS pen pals are the
students of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers who are serving as English
teachers. (Our organization is listed in the "World Wise Schools"
education programs section of the Peace Corps website.)

The pen pals range in age from children 8-9 years old to adults in their
40s and 50s. (The majority are teens and college age, so this
information is directed especially towards teachers.) About 90% can
correspond in English; others know French or German in addition to
Russian. (We match pen pals on the basis of age, gender, and common
language only.) The pen pals correspond by POSTAL MAIL only, not email.
In the next 5-10 years, this program may become obsolete because of the
internet, but as of right now very few secondary schools in the former
Soviet Union are connected to the internet and computers in the home are
rare, so most young people in the ex-USSR are missing out on the
international dialog that is now taking place because of the internet.
The sad thing is that the interest on the part of those outside the
former USSR (the USA particularly) has practically disappeared because of
the immediacy of email -- so it's been increasingly difficult to find
people to correspond with everyone who writes to us from the Baltics/CIS.
(Our current backlog of people from the Baltics/CIS who are waiting to
be matched with a pen pal is in excess of 100,000 people!!!)

Please share this information with any person, group, educator, or
librarian whom you feel would be interested in it. Thank you for your
time.

Michele Cervoni
Director, SAPE
P.O. Box 319
Monroe, CT 06468-0319
U.S.A.
Email: SAPEUSA@juno.com --OR-- sape@1webplaza.com
Tel: (203) 261-7238
Fax: (203) 261-6235

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message