One Classroom.

One Community.

One Week.

A quality education is the gateway to success, and it’s unfortunate that many students simply don’t have access to this fundamental opportunity.

This needs to change.

I’m proud to join seven schools in Tacoma for an incredibly important project: to build a classroom for a group of students in Kenya.

Our goal is to raise $10k… in just ONE week!

This $10k will not only pay for this classroom to be built but, more importantly, it will give these students in Kenya an opportunity to reach their full potential through a quality education.

Again, we only have ONE week to raise the funds so we need your help! Please donate, even if it’s just a few dollars… every dollar helps us get that much closer to our goal.

I hope you’ll join us and support this campaign. We have truly an opportunity to change lives of many students with this project.

And, once we reach our goal, I’ll create an original drawing for the new classroom – from all of us – to all of the students in Keyna.

Let’s do this!

#RiseUpTacoma

Donate now

UPDATE:

We did it! Our goal was to raise $10k in one week to build a classroom in Kenya, and we shattered that goal! In fact, we’ve raised over $20k so far, and now we’re going to build TWO classrooms!

These efforts were led by students from seven different elementary schools in Tacoma, WA. Truly an amazing accomplishment!! These elementary students said “this cause is important to us” and put forth the effort to raise the money, and our community responded in a resounding way!

We, as a community, showed these students that you not only have a voice, but when you set your mind towards achieving a goal, you can affect real, positive change on a global scale.

These students demonstrated the best of humanity: selflessness, compassion, and kindness. And it’s these qualities that will ultimately make the world a better place for us all.

Well done, students!

Amazing!!! Keep inspiring the world like you do https://t.co/iINMVxkn1M

— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) March 4, 2019

Why this campaign is so important

From We.org

Education

Almost 60 million primary school-aged children aren’t in school, according to the United Nations. Some of them, girls especially, have to stay at home to help take care of siblings and collect water; others have to go to work to help support their family; some live too far from the nearest school; others can’t afford to pay for school fees or buy a uniform.

These children are not getting the basic education they need to become empowered adults who can support their families and their communities out of poverty.

When children are educated, they are armed with the courage and self-confidence to better themselves and their families, their communities, and ultimately the next generation. They learn how to prevent illness and improve overall health, build and maintain infrastructure, manage personal and professional relationships, understand and advocate for basic rights, and secure a livelihood. And these tools help pull families and communities out of the cycle of poverty.

Because education is so important, it’s the cornerstone of Free The Children’s WE Villages model, and the foundation on which all our programs rest.

By improving access to schools, and providing additional resources like teacher training and supplies, WE Charity’s Education pillar brings long-term, sustainable education opportunities to communities who need it most.

Know the Facts

There are four million more girls than boys who can’t get an education.
A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.
25 million children will never go to school.
Investing in education can help a country lift its people out of poverty. Over 40 years, equitable access to quality education can help a country raise its gross domestic product per capita by 23%.
If all women had a primary education, there would be 1.7 million fewer malnourished children.

How We Work

We know that poverty plays a huge role in preventing children from going to school. That’s why we don’t just build schools and move on. Instead, we employ local staff familiar with the needs and challenges of the community to work directly with the government.

Local teams identify areas where schools need to be built, provide the tools to build, stock and staff them, and work with government agencies to find long-term solutions to the problem of getting children into the classroom and staying until they graduate.

In each country where we work, we partner with the Ministry of Education to ensure our projects are maintained over the long-term; create programming and initiatives that complement government-determined curriculum; and commit to providing all students—boys and girls—with a quality education.

Curriculum focuses on the basics—reading, writing and math—plus conceptual learning such as management and social relations, and practical knowledge like hand-washing, sanitation and budgeting. The children take what they’ve learnt home, share it with their parents, and ultimately empower and educate the entire community.

WE Charity education projects in partner communities include:

Building new schools and academic buildings like libraries, administrative offices and teacher accommodations
Rebuilding or refurbishing existing schools and school rooms
Providing furniture, educational resources and supplies
Offering leadership programming and training for teachers
Facilitating extracurricular school activities like health and environmental clubs

Our Impact

The facts are clear: educating children empowers the next generation with the life skills to transform their lives, the lives of their children and their communities.

Since the creation of our Education pillar, more than 1500 schools and school rooms have been built in WE Charity communities, giving 200,000 children the opportunity to gain an education and realize their true potential.

Education may provide the highest return of any social investment. Perhaps not surprisingly, that return is most profound when taking into account the impact of educating girls.

- The impact of school on a woman’s earning power is linked directly to higher economic growth. In developing countries, each additional year of schooling is associated with a 10% to 20% increase in women’s wages.

- When women and girls earn an income, they re-invest 90% of that income back into their families, as opposed to 30 to 40% for men.

- Educated girls are more likely to marry later and have fewer children. For example, women in Mali with a secondary school education or higher have an average of three children, while those with no education have an average of seven.

- Children born to educated mothers are less likely to be malnourished, according to UNESCO. In fact, each additional year a girl goes to school helps reduce the child mortality rate by 2%.

Educated girls are less vulnerable to sexual exploitation and to sexually transmitted disease.