From Wayne To Ecuador: STEM Academy Students Set Out To Become Global Game-Changers

Editor's note: This article has been changed to reflect that this program is at the PCTI STEM Academy.

WAYNE, NJ — The Passaic Technical Institute STEM Academy has joined dozens of other New Jersey schools that are working to change lives in communities around the world, through empathy and social entrepreneurship.

Freshmen at the STEM Academy, which is part of Passaic County Technical Vocational Schools, will partner with a New Jersey-based nonprofit called TEEEM (The Empathy Equality Entrepreneurship Mission) this year.

TEEEM offers free educational programming to schools, aimed at empowering youth to learn about global issues and humanitarianism by raising awareness and funding in their own communities. It was founded by Jarret Schecter, a North Jersey-based photojournalist who was inspired to get young people more involved in a global society, and has now partnered with 46 schools in the Garden State.

Several of the other schools have already helped the village of Miravalle, Ecuador build a new community center alongside a local organization called TECHO (the Spanish word for "roof" or "ceiling"). Now, the PCTI STEM students will work to support Miravalle further, by getting the residents access to electricity and running water.

Taylor D'Alessio, the Executive Vice President of TEEEM, said the students will also learn more about Ecuador, discuss the challenges Miravalle faces, and gain a deeper understanding of how they can make a difference through civic action and engagement.

"We've created a social entrepreneurship program that allows students to not just learn, but take action by creating events within their own community to help raise funds for the communities that they're supporting worldwide," she said.

She explained that this also includes students using their business skills to figure out how to maximize the resources they already have as they work towards their goal.

D'Alessio said that PCTI STEM Academy principal Joaquim Johnson connected the organization with several teachers at the school, to discuss how they could incorporate TEEEM's curriculum into their freshman seminar classes.

"We met with the teachers a few times and talked about what their goals were for the freshman seminar, because it was a brand new addition to the school," D'Alessio said. "And then the teachers ultimately picked which site they wanted to support; in this case, it was Ecuador."

TEEEM connects students with eight other communities around the globe, and one in the United States: At South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation and in Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Peru, Uganda and Ukraine.

"Towards the end of the year, (the students) are going to learn about civic action," she said. "Not just learning about these communities, but what can we actually do about it? And the students would then come up with a social entrepreneurship plan for what they'd like to do."

This summer, TEEEM representatives were in Miravalle as neighbors gathered to celebrate their new community center opening.

"It was wonderful," D'Alessio said. "And now, we are talking about some next phases."

This will include raising money to get electricity access for that community center, and also to connect the community with running water — which the PCTI STEM Academy students will play a key part in.

"Just the other day, I got a text message from one of our site leaders who lives there, and there were really bad wildfires," D'Alessio said. "And because they don't have running water in this community, they had to get water bottles to try and help with whatever they could in extinguishing it."

D'Alessio added that TEEEM hopes to be able to connect students at the STEM Academy with the community in Miravalle over a video chat soon, and even possibly have a language exchange program.

Since the new school year just began in September and this is a new program, Passaic County Technical-Vocational Schools did not yet have a comment on their partnership with TEEEM — but a spokesperson said the district is "eager to share more information in the near future."

To learn more about TEEEM, visit their website here: https://www.teeem.org