WEEK 50: Pencils of Promise
Can you believe there are only 2 more weeks of 2017? Welcome back to another week of GIVE52. Today we are giving to Pencil’s of Promise.
Pencils of Promise, or PoP for short, builds schools and increases educational opportunities in Laos, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. They believe that every child deserves a quality education and are innovators in the non-profit space with a “for-purpose” model and 100% of donations going to programming. As of the time of this email, they have built 429 schools, trained 783 teachers, and impacted 74,503 students. You can read more about their impact here.
"250 million of the world's primary school aged children lack basic reading, writing and math skills. Poor, unsafe infrastructure, untrained teachers and preventable illnesses are all barriers to quality education, especially for children living in rural, developing communities. In our countries of impact, Ghana, Guatemala and Laos, students and teachers lack the resources and tools proven to overcome these barriers. In Ghana, 28% of primary school students will drop out before completing primary school. In Guatemala, four years is the average length of schooling for a child. And in Laos, 30% of the population is illiterate, with even higher rates of illiteracy amongst ethnic minorities. Students in these communities attend class in dilapidated structures or outside, under the shade of trees, rather than in formal schools. Teachers in these communities lack formal training and don't have a support system in place to help them become effective educators."
"Pencils of Promise provides the means, methods and materials necessary to give the world's neediest children quality education and basic literacy. We build primary schools to ensure students have safe access to a structurally sound, quality learning environment. We train and coach teachers, implement WASH and provide innovative in-classroom programs to create a scalable model for a complete, high-quality education. Our teacher training workshops model effective classroom practice and high-engagement instruction. We build safe and clean bathrooms and teach students about water, sanitation and hygiene to keep them healthy and in school. We integrate e-readers and tablets into our programming with the goal of achieving basic literacy for 90% of students by the end of grade six.” - PoP
Here’s to quality education for all.
Have a wonderful and safe holiday season!
Jodi
