Tuesday night I witnessed something very moving that has a great effect on reversing climate change.
As I reported before, Paul Hawken’s book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, reports that the sixth and seventh most promising solutions to climate change are respectively, Educating Women and Family Planning. Together, these two solutions are the most promising ones we have for the immediate future. Together, they rank above the number one solution, Refrigerant Management and number two, Onshore Wind Turbines.
from Daraja Academy website
“Daraja is in the business of educating leaders.
“Daraja Academy provides an exemplary secondary education to girls who have no other means of continuing school. We choose girls who, despite their circumstances, have earned high grades and give back to their communities. We choose them because every girl has the right to learn. We choose them because the best indicator of leadership potential is the ability to display grit, courage, and kindness when faced with adversity. We choose them because the best disrupters of poverty are those who were born in it.
“Daraja offers extraordinary leadership education to even more extraordinary girls.”
We witnessed two young ladies from the academy, both 17 years old, explain how their lives have benefited from being accepted to the Daraja Academy. Their stories tell of extreme deprivation, poverty and how Daraja was their last resort to getting a high school education. They spoke of abuse and early marriage, early pregnancy, genital mutilation and illness. They also spoke of the sense of love and community that they experienced at the school and their excitement about learning and receiving a high school education.
Only 30 out of 300 applicants are chosen based on their academic accomplishments and community service. I hope that we can do something about the other 290 applicants who are also quite qualified to attend, but were not accepted for one reason or another.
I urge you to check out what they are accomplishing and make a donation if you are so moved. The girls pay for their tuition with 120 hours of community service. It takes about $2,600 to educate one girl for one year. They have a maximum of 120 girls – 30 from each class.
Please join me in donating to the worthwhile cause.
You must be logged in to post a comment.