Standing in the gap of ignorance

It is often surprising what a small investment it takes to change a life. This fact is repeatedly brought home with the school season.  A parent is often willing to sacrifice a child's education the lack of a pair of shoes, a skirt, a blouse a handful of paper or a fistful of pens. We make sure that every child within the purview of our oversight is fully equipped to go to school. This process begins in January as we canvass every home in the valley. Yet our zeal to give away what every child needs is tempered by one of our most fundamental principles: the poor should do what they can to meet their own obligations.

Each parent is asked to give what they can to the child’s required school materials and uniforms. This comes to about fifty dollars per child. On average, most needy families can only buy a pair of shoes or a shirt or a blouse. We do the rest. This year we are helping over forty families in part or in whole to put their children back in school.  Almost three hundred children will receive some kind of matriculation assistance.

It does not end here, however. Throughout the year, the public schools will demand all kinds of materials that put quite a pinch on the poor’s budget. We pledge to be right there to supplement a responsible parent’s hope to raise an educated child.

We need to raise 10,000 dollars to meet this need. As with all of donations requested in this site, one-hundred percent will go to the need targeted.

This fund is not just for school supplies but also for specialized medical care, medicines, supplemental food for families with malnourished children, repairs on leaking roofs or falling down walls, latrine construction, and a variety of other needs that present throughout the year.

For the rest of 2008 we must raise $600 a month alone to provide transportation for our teens attending high school in Danli – about 30 minutes from Linaca. We have twenty teens that must get back and forth to school daily.

We also need additional funding for uniforms, shoes, books, and supplies as these run out (or wear out) during the school year. Funding is also needed for children we meet along the way, like Flora, who have never been to school.

Our center is packed to capacity this year – over 350 children a week attend the center. With so many new children we have run out of room to seat them all. We are in immediate need of new desks and chairs so that everyone has adequate and comfortable space to receive tutoring and do their homework. 

In addition to the costs of transportation, books, and uniforms the public schools require the students to purchase special supplies during the year. One such requirement is a $12 chair each student must purchase to donate to the school before graduation. Most Linacan families earn around $30-$50 a month. The wealthiest of families brings in about $90 a month. Most simply cannot afford a $12 chair on top of all the other things they are required to buy. It becomes impossible when the families have students graduating the 6^th and 9^th grades at the same time. 

Last year we learned that several of our best students were not going to graduate because their families could not pay for the $12 chairs! These children, nor their parents volunteered this information. We found out about it because we are actively involved in each child’s life that attends our center. If we had not asked questions, these children would have been deprived of a diploma and continuing in school for lack of a $12 chair!