Around the world, one week at a time

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This article was published 03/12/2020 (1765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Minnedosa man has made it his goal to bring a slice of countries around the world into Manitoba homes to help inspire curiosity in the next generation.

Dave Ternier initially started a program called Country of the Week to give his own daughters, Marika and Kiana, a taste of the world, but now wants to open it up for other families to learn about the diverse nations of the world.

“For us, it’s become a way to see the world from the perspective of curiosity and fascination, as opposed to more negative things,” Ternier said.

“I really wanted my girls to have a baseline understanding of the world before the often complex nature of news and other inputs started coming at them from every direction. The news can be a challenging place even for adults to decipher some days.”

Country of the Week is a program for families to learn about the world’s approximately 200 countries one week at a time.

Ternier said families can take it at their own pace in a relaxed way — it’s not meant to add more stress to already busy schedules.

The program features printable materials, such as colouring sheets and word searches, with links to recipes and YouTube videos that act as a prompt for kids to use their curiosity to learn about a particular country, he said.

The idea came to him when the family moved from Virden to Minnedosa four years ago, Ternier said.

He initially started it just for his own family, but wants to make the resource available to everyone.

“I knew in that move I really wanted to make sure our girls … were really connected to the world and felt a sense of place and being,” he said.

“We live in rural Manitoba, where sometimes we feel like we’re quite separate from the rest of the world living out here, far from large urban centres of the planet.”

“I said to myself ‘No, not for my girls. I’m going to do what I can to maybe give them some exposure to all the different places out there because I want them to grow up with a perspective of understanding.’”

So far, Ternier said he has created sheets for 120 countries. When The Sun reached him, he was working on Poland with his daughters.

While Ternier said he is slightly behind schedule with creating the country sheets, it should take a family approximately four years to go through the countries week by week once it is all finished.

“The downsides to this project became rapidly apparent early on and that is I am going to go broke helping my girls travel to every country they want to go to. They both have bucket lists a mile long of places they want to go to,” he said.

The family has so far learned many things about other countries, Ternier said, like that there is debate whether perogies were invented in Ukraine or Poland and that Ethiopia uses a distinct calendar from the rest of the world.

Since he started working on the project in 2017, Ternier said he wants to see if he can “multiply the impact” he has seen take place with his own daughters through Country of the Week.

“I’m now taking on the task of going ‘Well, let’s see how many people from the generation my daughters are a part of, how many people from that generation can I help see the world in a more optimistic fashion, in a more curiosity-fed manner?’”

More information on the program and how to subscribe is available at countryoftheweek.world.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_