Students from Albany's Delaware Community School got the unique chance to Skype with students in Uganda on Tuesday. Barry Wygel was there and got to see the call first hand.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- It's not every day you get to make a new friend half a world away. For Mrs. Fowler's class, that was made possible Tuesday.
The class Skyped with 17 boys in a Ugandan orphanage. While it was the first meeting for the American students, the two schools have a connection.
"We raised $343 in pennies," said Susan Fowler, a second grade teacher.
The money was used to buy mosquito nets to protect the boys from malaria. The classes also sent letters back and forth, and learned songs in both native languages.
"To have children from one country halfway around the world meet with children who are their age, who eat a lot of the same foods. It's a way of really bringing home the message that we all are all one family," said Music Mobile executive director Ruth Pelham.
The Ugandan students take English classes so the students were able to converse back and forth with no issues.
"When we see each other face to face, voice to voice, song to song, we stop being an abstraction. We become real to each other. That way we begin caring at a deeper level," said Pelham.
"Hopefully this will be an ongoing thing I can do with each class," said Fowler.
Next year, Ruth plans to be on the other side of the camera, hopefully delivering the next set of donations raised in the coming year.