- Social Innovation Fellowship
Award Year
The School Fund is an online, person-to-person, funding platform that addresses educational inequality in the developing world. We connect students otherwise unable to continue their education because of school fees, with donors (we call them funders) around the world. Students create profile pages outlining their financial needs (eg. $30 tuition, $40 uniform, $25 school supplies). Schools will also be able to create profile pages, and request items to improve their facilities and quality of education.
Our first partner school is Lugalo Secondary School, in Iringa Tanzania, where we are funding 32 students for the Jan-Nov 2010 year. However, cost and quality of school are not issues unique to Tanzania; The School Fund hopes to eventually expand throughout Africa, and the world, to provide opportunity to any student who wishes to continue their education, and any school that wishes to improve the quality of learning on their campus.
Personal Statement
I became interested in education in Tanzania after meeting a young boy named John Medo in the summer of 2007. He was cutting some grass for his family cow outside of our hotel. After a two-minute long conversation in broken English, he promptly invited me over to his house for bread and tea. I soon learned that John had, that very year, graduated from primary school at the top of his class, but was going to be unable to continue his education due to $150/year school fees.
I immediately saw that John was a bright, energetic student. He has big dreams—he wants to President one day, see for yourself on our website—and to forgo his education would have been a tremendous loss for him, his family and his community. We created The School Fund to connect people from around the world in providing students like John with the opportunity to continue attending school, learning, and growing through education.