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Clinton Global Initiative awards grant to UNT student nonprofit
DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Hundreds of children growing up in Kroo Bay, an informal housing settlement located in Freetown, Sierra Leone, attend schools that operate without electricity and running water, are prone to flooding, and have a small selection of textbooks. Of the 6,000 residents of Kroo Bay, only 500 children are able to receive this minimalist education in its two schools. With the creation of the Kroo Bay Initiative, students and faculty at the University of North Texas are working to overcome the obstacles faced by Kroo Bay's educational facilities. In October, the Clinton Global Initiative, which was founded by President Bill Clinton in 2005 to mobilize world leaders to take action on major global issues, awarded the Kroo Bay Initiative at UNT with the youth-focused CGI U Outstanding Commitment Award. Financed by the Wal-Mart Foundation, the $1,000 grant will be used to implement the Kroo Bay Initiative's Commitment to Action, a project of the Clinton Global Initiative in which college students and university officials agree to take action to improve communities throughout the world. Co-founded in Spring 2008 by UNT alumnus Ryan Schuette and senior Lindsey Bengfort after her return from the region, the Kroo Bay Initiative is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring high-quality, primary-level education in the area. The Kroo Bay Initiative's immediate focus is to assist the two existing schools, the Fuwa Primary School and the Sandra Hirston Literary Center, so that the schools can meet their basic operational needs and expand their educational programs. The grant will be used to purchase and deliver desks, chairs and uniforms for children in Kroo Bay, as requested by the community. "The children are just sitting on the floor, but the floor is not clean," says Erum Shaikh, chair of the Kroo Bay Initiative and a 2004 graduate of UNT. "It's absolutely the opposite of what you would find here." She adds that uniforms will make the children feel proud that they are a part of something, build their confidence and inspire Kroo Bay's children who don't attend school to want to go to school. So far, UNT's Kroo Bay Initiative has used other funds to ship eight donated water filtration systems to the region's two primary schools, a youth center and two community elders as a goodwill gift. The water systems will provide Kroo Bay's hundreds of schoolchildren with clean, filtered water, and thereby improve the children's health so that they are healthy enough to attend school, according to Shaikh. She says that the group's next major initiative is to address the extreme flooding that occurs in Kroo Bay and inhibits students' efforts to go to school. The group plans to build a bridge by one of the schools so that the children can cross the floodwaters and get to school. For the other school, they plan to build a retaining wall to stop the floodwaters from inundating the school with water. "We just really need the support of the public at this time, although we've received this grant," Shaikh says. She adds that public donations will help UNT's Kroo Bay Initiative achieve its goals. "Money goes further there because of the exchange rate. Five dollars will actually pay for a uniform." The Clinton Global Initiative is a nonpartisan catalyst for action that brings together global leaders from various backgrounds to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Visit the Clinton Global Initiative Web site for more information. For interviews or more information about UNT's Kroo Bay Initiative, contact Erum Shaikh at (972) 742-4312 or kroobay@gmail.com or visit Kroo Bay Initiative Web site.
UNT News Service Phone Number: (940) 565-2108
Contact: Nancy Kolsti (940) 565-3509
Email: nkolsti@unt.edu
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