Building Schools, Building Hope
Since 2005, Build a School in Africa has raised funds and built three schools in Mali. Currently only about 65% of Mali‘s children can attend school because of the lack of classrooms, so building projects are sorely needed.
We need your help: As we are an all-volunteer organization, with no paid staff, 100% of contributions go toward building new schools. Please consider making a contribution.
Events in 2010
Our our annual fundraiser, the African Rythms—Dance and Music from Africa show will take place:
Malaika Thorne in Dansa, photo courtesy of the Harvard Post.
Saturday March 27, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Cronin Auditorium at the Bromfield School
14 Massachusetts Avenue (Rte 111)
Harvard, MA, 01451
Sunday March 28, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts
40 Stow Street
Concord, MA 02139
Click here for more information on the African Rythms show.
Popular among horse owners, our African Safari Benefit Trail Ride will take place on June. Stay tuned for more information and exact dates.
Fifth School Under Construction
Cinder blocks for the new school; the first school building is in the background, for grades 4, 5, and 6; the new school will house grades 1, 2, and 3
Judy Lorimer from Build a School in Africa visited Mali in November with our annual contribution to help build our 5th school. Save the Children hosted a ceremony on November 18th to lay the first brick for a new elementary school in the village of Mounkonkoro. Our project this year was helped greatly by the Binnie family from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Their two sons, Adam and Dylan, with their Dad Bill's support, raised $10,000 this summer. This donation, plus the $9,000 raised by Build a School In Africa, will provide about 2/3 of the funding for the new school building.
Mounkonkoro is a village northwest of Sikasso, populated by the members of the Senufo ethnic group. Last year Save the Children built one three-room school in the village, and this year we are adding 3 more classrooms, so they will have a complete primary school for grades 1 - 6. At the Binnie's request, the new school will be named for Christine Laidlaw.
Read more about the new school (plus photos)!
Fourth School Finished in 2008
Here is a photo of the recently completed school in Diaka, completed in 2008 with funds from Build a School in Africa!
School in Diaka, completed in 2008 with funds from Build a School in Africa
History
In 2002, Kyla McKenna, a senior at the Bromfield school in Harvard, Massachusetts, needed a topic for her Senior Humanities Project. Knowing that Judy Lorimer, a teacher at the elementary school, made frequent trips to Mali, West Africa, bringing supplies to schools there, Kyla decided to raise money to help build a school. She raised almost $10,000 the first year, and each year another student has taken over the project. Ms. Lorimer mentored the project, and by the summer of 2005 they had raised about $20,000.
Build a School in Africa has built three schools in the past three years! In a partnership with Save the Children, Ms. Lorimer took $10,000 from the project’s account when she went to Mali in November, 2005 spend a month as a volunteer in the Kolondieba District in the south of Mali. Save the Children provided the additional funding, and construction on a new three-classroom middle school began November 10th. By the end of January, the building was finished, and will enroll students in the fall of 2006.
Encouraged by the success of the first building project, Build a School in Africa‘s goal is to continue fund-raising to build more schools in collaboration with Save the Children, an A-rated international charity with an effective school-building program in southern Mali. Currently only about 65% of Mali’s children can attend school because of the lack of classrooms, so building projects are sorely needed.
Each spring one of the main fund-raisers is an exciting performance of African dance and music, called “African Rhythms”; other fund-raisers in 2005 included a two-day “African Safari” trail ride, an Oxfam Hunger Banquet, and sale of African jewelry, crafts and drums.
Ms. Lorimer (also known as Korotoumou Coulibaly in Mali) is available as a speaker for your club, organization, or school, and can provide DVD photo-journals, masks, textiles, and other African art objects, and demonstration of a traditional dance, as well as information about the school project. For more information, please send an e-mail to jmlorimer@juno.com or call 978-433-2384.
