Open Doors Center

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
                                                               --Einstein
      Open Doors Center believes that learning comes from within.  When the right environment is provided children will flourish.  Open Doors provides an environment where children are encouraged to explore and discover, an environment which allows JOY and WONDER to return to learning and education.

            "Remember, that we need not devise educational
              programs, but rather we need to perceive how
              human beings grow and then surround them with 
              the food they need." 
                                                  The Call to Brilliance
                                                  Resa Steindel Brown

A true story from a supporter of Open Doors...

"In 2008, my then 16 year old daughter was attending a prestigious school in the San Francisco Bay area.  One of the teachers was deeply into the power of film to move communitites.  He sponsored a film series at the schooL, which usually involved the director discussing the film after it had been shown.  One afternoon my duaghter came home after seeing the the documentary film CHINA BLUE and hearing the director speak about the experience.

Without the permission of the Chinese government and using hidden cameras, the director had chronicled the severe economic pressures American and other European blue jean manufacturers placed upon the factories in China to produce large quanitities of blue jeans to be sold in the US as well as abroad at very low prices.  It also chronicled the life of teens who were forced to work in the factories from 8 AM to 2 AM seven days a week for wages of less than $1.00 a day.  For my daughter, it was a horrifying expose on the life of young teen women in another country.

She came home very disturbed, but also excited about an idea she had been hatching during the afternoon.  "Dad, why couldn't I work to create a line of jeans where the teen girls who purchased them could become pen pals with the the teen girls in China who made them.  And why couldn't two or three dollars from the price of jeans go directly into a fund to help them move out of that situation into an education?"

Here were the educational opportunitites. I would volunteer to head the class (her dad) and gather a couple of parents to help.  We would find a team of experts in the areas of Chinese culture, Chinese language, Chinese manufacturing, Amercian clothing design, American business, and international marketing, etc. and create a class using the experts as the teachers.  We could even envision the team of students making a presentation to the GAP or Levi's for their sponsorship and to become mentor's for the project.  A small percentage of the sales could go to a scholarship fund for the school's students to go to college.  Perhaps a trip or two to China would be a part of the class.  Regardless of the outcome it would be an immense education.

The idea was presented to the school.  We were told the idea was too big for their curriculum,  too out of the box. I pushed harder by saying that it could be run after school by parents and outside folks, so as not to interfere, but to no avail.  The idea died on the table with the school"....OPEN DOORS WOULD SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGE SUCH AN AMAZING VISION OF A STUDENT.  THAT IS FOLLOWING YOUR PASSION AND EXPERIENCING EUCATION AT THE SAME TIME!