Beyond our 18 years of experience in schools, we also support kids’ and youth mental health-related organizations. With approximately 80% of communication being nonverbal, we offer a unique service for reflection, self-discovery and healing in a private, judgment-free way.
The 5000 Days Project offers Personal Story Mentoring to kids and teens around the world via Virtual and in-personal filmed interviews. Led by Rick Stevenson, our interviewers apply the StoryQ Method of inquiry and include professionals with backgrounds in counseling, youth education, and documentary filmmaking.
Nine years ago, the 5000 Days Project was invited to the Sunrise Children’s Villages in Cambodia by two visionaries ladies: Australian Founder Geraldine Cox and her American friend, Mary Anne Hatch. Since Cambodia lacked some basic social services for mental health, they felt the annual interviews might help these kids process their painful pasts, grow their self knowledge, and discover that they can be the authors of their own lives, not victims. Nine years later, we’re happy to report that these kids have achieved higher EQs than many of their more fortunate counterparts around the world.
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They’ve achieved this in a country where people don’t have a lot of time to focus on anything more than survival. Despite having a grossly underfunded education system where teachers often take bribes to supplement their meager incomes, Cambodia has a good deal to teach us about education.
In the privileged West, kids approach school as a prison sentence having to be served, and their main incentive for going is to see their fellow inmates. Despite all of the money spent and the innovative brilliance of western educators, the effectiveness of western education is constantly undercut by this attitude and the disconnect between what kids are learning and why they’re learning it.
In Cambodia, kids view education as the ultimate privilege and are excited to attend school. Six days a week. Their gratitude quite simply makes learning much easier and more effective. The evidence is in the numbers. Immigrant kids in North America who arrive with the same sense of gratitude consistently score much higher on tests than their jaded American counterparts.
Before throwing more money at the problem, we in the West might first attempt a cost-free fix by owning our complicity in our children’s attitude and turning it around. The transformative power of gratitude can be taught. It comes from growing EQ.
Learn about the independent research on the value of verbal journaling & digital storytelling HERE→
