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 2008
Our our annual fundraiser, the African Rythms—Dance and Music from Africa show will take place on Saturday, 4/12 in Harvard, MA and Sunday, 4/13 in Cambridge. Click here for more information.
Popular among horse owners, our African Safari Benefit Trail Ride will take place on June 7 & 8, 2008.
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.
