Schools for Humanity

A message from our Director

While visiting the town of Shashemene, Ethiopia in July 2006, I was saddened to learn that the children of the community had little or no access to formal education. These wonderful kids, who had become my friends, were a small part of the 6 million other children in Ethiopia who did not go to school. They were destined to start work at a very young age and be caught up in a cycle of hard work and poverty their whole lives.

At the end of my trip, I vowed to build these children a school. Not a grand facility that would lead these children away from their families in search of higher education - but a local neighborhood school open to boys and girls regardless of clan, caste or religion.

With a few friends, we formed Schools for Humanity to achieve this goal. Today we run a school for 160 children, with four teachers and two assistants.

We plan to increase the number of children we educate, and take on other projects in places of need. Schools for Humanity is an effective and efficiently run organization: we are all volunteers; no one draws a salary and when we travel to work on our projects, we pay our own way.

We are committed to providing formal education to children in the poorer areas of the world. We are also committed to ensure that every dollar donated to us has the maximum impact on the lives of the children.