The Friendship Through Education initiative, launched by the U.S. Department of Education in response to the events surrounding September 11, 2001, continues to work to build strong and lasting relationships between American children and those from other countries and cultures. Consortium members of the Friendship Through Education initiative listed below are very active in those same countries where the devastating effects of the recent tsunami have been the most severe. These organizations are challenging schools and educators in the United States to respond to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Your help and responsiveness would be most welcome.

NetAid
NetAid is challenging students and educators in the United States to come up with creative ways to respond to this humanitarian crisis through the Student-to Student challenge. Funds raised by U.S. students will be used to help students in South and Southeast Asia affected by the disaster. Donations made to the NetAid Asian Earthquake Crisis Fund will be used to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to children while also supporting the long-term reconstruction efforts throughout the region.

To learn more about NetAid's "Student-to-Student Challenge" and lesson plans on the tsunami disaster, visit www.netaid.org.

Relief International - Schools Online
As part of the Quarters From Kids initiative, Relief International - Schools Online is providing students, teachers, and communities in the U.S. with the opportunity to support the youngest victims of the tsunami - the children - by giving one or more child in South Asia a Kid-Kit. Each Kid-Kit provides a child in South Asia with a backpack and basic school supplies necessary to go back to school and restart their education. 100% of the donations to the Kid-Kit project are used to provide these Kid-Kits directly to the children who need them.

For more information on how you can be involved, go to www.kid-kits.org

iEARN - The International Education and Resource Network
iEARN is working with its national organizations in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other impacted countries to rebuild schools and educational services on a long-term basis. It has a school twinning program to link schools in the US with those in impacted countries. Following the Bam, Iran earthquake disater, iEARN created an ongoing earthquake relief fund which is being used to deal with the recent Indian Ocean tragedy. In addition, iEARN countries have created the Operation H.O.P.E (Help Other People Everywhere - http://www.iearn-canada.org/hope.html) to help schools work directly with impacted areas. Information on how individual schools, students, teachers and communities can be involved, can visit: http://www.iearn.org/tsunami_relief.html.

Sister Cities International
Sister Cities International has developed a special designation called "Partners for Humanitarian Assistance" that can be utilized to quickly start humanitarian assistance projects in situations like this. If your community is interested in forming a partnership with a community affected by the tsunamis consider looking to the links in the box to the right for a list of sister city partnerships in the region that were hit directly by the tsunamis. In addition, you can find communities with relationships in the U.S. that are in affected countries, but were not directly affected. See: http://www.sister-cities.org/sci/Tsunami

People to People International
Tsunami Relief in Sri Lanka One hundred percent of the donations directed to PTPI's International Friendship Fund (IFF) in support of Tsunami Relief will be applied directly toward relief efforts. PTPI's emphasis will be in Sri Lanka. Shown here, a child met during Mary Eisenhower's visit to Sri Lanka in 2004 on behalf of PTPI's Global Landmine Initiative. During that visit, President and CEO of PTPI, Mary, and Executive Vice President Marc Bright, met with officials of One Sri Lanka Foundation to assess needs and determine ways to assist. Since that visit, enough funds were raised to sponsor a demining team for one year. See: http://www.ptpi.org/home_page_feature.jsp?HOME_PAGE_FEATURE_ID=330