Meet Beryl Cheal
Our residents don’t have lots of money, but they have done and continue to do amazing things and live generous lives. Thanks to you, they also have a home of their own.
How long have you lived at Northaven?
I moved into Northaven last September. I love it here!
What gives you joy?
My joy is seeing children become more open, less scared, more self-confident, and less traumatized after surviving major disasters.
How do you do this?
I design intervention programs and train early childhood educators as an Early Childhood Educational Consultant. For more than 50 years, I have had the opportunity to help traumatized children all over the world to regain their lives by creating programs that help.
What is your background?
I started as an elementary teacher. Then I switched to Early Childhood Education, working in the early days of the Head Start program to help young children from difficult home environments.
Later, by working internationally through the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee/Quakers), the Peace Corp, and the Church of the Brethren’s Children’s Disaster Services, and gaining degrees in Early Childhood Education and Middle Eastern Studies, I’ve helped children touched by disaster in Moldavia, Philippines, South Africa, the Gaza Strip and Jordan, by training directors and educators to help them. Closer to home, I also worked with the City of New York to develop preschool programs that supported children affected by 9/11. My current work is with a community agency in Jordan, the Collateral Repair Project. They provide services for Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese, and other refugee families.
What is your current passion?
My current passion is as an Educational Consultant in the “Supergirls” program.
Jordan, being in the center of a troubled Middle East, has many refugees. Working with a local community center last fall, I wrote lesson plans, trained local volunteers and handed off a “Supergirls” program that will help some 120 young girls (60, aged 6–8; and 60, aged 9–12) deal with the trauma they have encountered.
Six months later, I am going back to see how those girls in the Supergirls program are faring.