K9 Ambassador Rico and MLI Team Visit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

K9 Ambassador Rico traveled to Pittsburgh, PA to visit St. Edmund's Academy with Development and Communications Manager - Eden Slator, and Educational Programs Director - Anne Wooleyhand. We are so grateful to Marian Lien and Kirsten Mahoney for arranging two days of amazing events. It is always fun to visit different parts of the city and take advantage of great photo opportunities.

Day 1: Anne attended the St. Edmund's Chapel Meeting where she gave a speech about a lifelong learning mindset while Eden and Rico walked around the Squirrel Hill area. The student leader for the meeting also gave his thoughts about lifelong learning, and the entire student body showed amazing school spirit as they closed with their alma mater. Eden, Rico, and Anne then presented how a puppy becomes a mine detection dog with the younger students. Rico did a great job with his sniffing demonstration, and the kids loved petting him as they left the presentation. Our next stop was with the three-year-olds. They were so gentle and sweet with Rico. In the evening, the MLI team visited with boy scouts. The scouts engaged in a presentation about landmines including where they are located, their impact, the economics of landmines, and how they are removed using machinery, technology, and mine detection dogs.

Day 2: The MLI team had the honor of attending the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Symposium at the school. What an incredible demonstration of the power of youth. Every grade at St. Edmunds Academy participated in service learning projects addressing one or more of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The highlight for the MLI Team was seeing the in-person presentation of the 7th graders who had participated in MLI's Peace Through Sport (PTS) virtual exchange program with Yemen and started their project as part of this program. This group of students addressed food insecurity and food waste, which is very relevant to their community due to recent storms causing significant damage. Another highlight was seeing one of the former PTS round students present his 8th grade capstone project. This impressive young man created and is currently implementing a program to recycle used fencing sword blades to raise money that is being used to make the sport of fencing accessible to young people in the Pittsburgh area. To top all of these amazing events, the team met a new friend named Mirsada. Mirsada currently lives in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh and was really taken with Rico, especially once she heard of his heroic work in Bosnia. Misada grew up in Sarajevo during the civil war in the 1990s.