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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. Launches New Ambassador Project and
Website, Taking The Company Worldwide
Partners With The Children’s
Health Education Foundation And Participates in National Education Conference
New
York, NY – July 15, 2008 – The T.I.M.M.-E Company, Inc.
(Tolerance in Multi Media Education)— an educational company to teach
tolerance for diversity in schools—launches the SAGE Ambassador Project ™ and
a new website, extending its mission to reach a global audience.
“It is my goal that the SAGE Ambassador Project ™ will
amplify the T.I.M.M.-E Company’s mission of teaching diversity and
celebrate our common humanity to end teasing, taunting and bullying due
to differences within classrooms around the world,” Timothy D. Bellavia,
founder of the T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. and award-winning children’s author,
said.
The SAGE Ambassador Project will be featured on the T.I.M.M.-E
Company’s
newly designed website. Each month the website will showcase one classroom
in a different region in the world using the “We Are All the Same
Inside” curriculum. The curriculum with hands-on materials to teach
tolerance is based upon Bellavia’s first of four children’s
books of the same name.
The new website will modernize its former, static
design and replace it with an interactive approach, featuring a make your
own doll workshop. As a result, any classroom in the world can take part
in the learning experience. A classroom in Australia - led by Will Dorrell
- just completed using the “We
Are All the Same Inside” curriculum. A documentary of the children’s
experience is scheduled for release this month under T.I.M.M.-E Productions,
a division of the T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc.
“It came together wonderfully,” Bellavia said about working
hand and hand with the classroom in Australia . “It was like a love
letter from the universe.”
South Africa and Las Vegas are the next
regions planned to complete the tolerance workshops.
Over the past decade
the T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. has built a franchise on Sage—a cuddly character
first introduced in the children’s
book We Are All the Same Inside —who became so recognizable with
children and popular with educators that a plush doll was released. The
doll possesses the same internal organs that we all share, but demonstrates
the external skin differences that continue to divides us. In the workshops
each participant designs a Sage doll and through a hands-on approach embraces
the message that ‘we are all the same inside.’
Children’s
Health Education Foundation
The T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. announces
its partnership with Project Aspire, a program developed by the Children’s
Health Education Foundation, a non-profit unit of the School of Education
and Psychology – A Graduate
Division of Touro College in New York City . Project Aspire’s mission
is to encourage health care aspirations of students in Central Harlem whose
social, economic, or educational circumstances may challenge the fulfillment
of their dreams.
“The Children’s Health Education Foundation
is a foundation near to my heart,” Bellavia said. “Their motto
is "Yes
I Can;” there is a lot of good vitality going on here. Children are
like sponges. You tell them they can and they believe they can.”
The
T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. is developing “Operation Lab Coat,” a
publication that chronicles the pilot year of this wonderful early childhood
program that features the Sage doll.
“This program models and introduces the health
care profession to children,” Bellavia said. “It exercises
and plants the seeds for proper nutrition. The goal for any educator is
to have your students reach their highest potential. This foundation’s
project helps inspire students to be health care workers—like doctors.”
Core
Knowledge
The T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. will conduct doll-making workshops
to educators across the country at this year’s Core Knowledge National
Conference in Anaheim , CA from Nov. 20-22.
The Core Knowledge Foundation
is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization founded in 1986.
Core Knowledge is centered around a curriculum that focuses on learning
through hands-on approaches. Therefore, it is a perfect match for the “We
Are All the Same Inside” curriculum.
“Core Knowledge makes education more vibrant and
wholistic for the youn g learner,” Bellavia said. “The textbooks
have made a buzz with some of my colleagues, and when they personally asked
me to present, I was just thrilled.”
Upcoming Appearances
Mr. Bellavia will conduct doll-making
workshops at the following venues:
PS 33 – New York – July 17
Museum of the City of New York – New York – August 9
New York University – New York – August 14
Single Parent Resource Center – New York – August 20
About the
T.I.M.M.-E Company. Inc.
The T.I.M.M.-E. Company, Inc. (Tolerance in Multi
Media Education) was founded in 2000 by Timothy D. Bellavia to promote
peace, tolerance and acceptance for our common humanity. With the success
of Bellavia’s
first children’s picture book, We Are All The Same Inside , The T.I.M.M.-E.
Co. Inc. developed an early childhood, human diversity school curriculum
with tolerance-teaching dolls featured in Bellavia’s books. The primary
purpose of the “We Are All the Same Inside” line of products
is to help young individuals develop, understand and appreciate the various
aspects of cultural diversity and gender differences.
In 2003 Bellavia presented
the curriculum at the United Nations on the International day of Tolerance
on behalf of the Anti Defamation League and the We Are Family Foundation.
The theme of his address was “Educating
Our Children For A Safer World.”
In 2004 the New York City Department
of Education realized the value of the curriculum and awarded the company
a contract. This contract has allowed the T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc. to strenghten
its mission to teach tolerance to New York City’s school children,
while integrating the arts into the literacy curriculum.
Continuing a partnership that began in 2004 with Sesame Reads Annual Literacy
Day, The T.I.M.M.-E.Co. Inc. participated in CLC’s (The Children’s
Learning Center)105th anniversary in Stamford, CT in September 2007.
About
Timothy D. Bellavia,
Timothy D. Bellavia is an award-winning children's
author, illustrator and educator with a M.F.A. from Pratt Institute in
New York. Bellavia's art has hung in museums and galleries throughout the
United States. He has also worked as an independent curator at the Lower
East Side Tenement Museum. He teaches in the School of Education & Psychology – Graduate
Division at Touro College in New York City. Bellaiva is the author of We
Are All the Same Inside (2000), Come and Abide (2002), Theo and the Sisters
of Sage (2003) and Sage Goes to Kindergarten (2006). He has also produced
two caldendars featuring Sage for the Elias Howe School and the Single
Parent Resource Center.
Bellavia is is the receiptent of the Skowhegan School
of Painting and Scuplture’s
Fellowship Grant of 1997, Christopher Award Nominee for Best Children’s
Book of 2001 for We Are All the Same Inside, Principal for a Day (2002),
and Y.A.I. (Young Adult Institute) Recognition Award (2003).
CONTACT
For
more information on the T.I.M.M.-E Co. Inc., Dustin Fitzharris, dfitzharris@weareallthesameinside.com
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