buildOn

For more than two decades, buildOn has partnered with local governments and mobilized rural villages in some of the poorest countries on the planet to build more than 618 schools in Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Senegal. In February 2014, they broke ground on their first school in Burkina Faso.

Working in partnership with rural communities and local Ministries of Education, buildOn is breaking ground on one new school every three days. Primary school enrolment numbers in the villages that they partner with increase on average by more than 20% following the first year of project completion.

buildOn has worked to inspire parents in rural communities to become active participants in their own development and education improvement. Access to quality education remains a critical barrier for people living in rural villages. Education management, quality, relevance, and access are some of the challenges shared by people in the regions where they work. Children in the communities where buildOn works do not enroll in primary school or drop out of school for many reasons.

Over the past 22 years, buildOn projects have made a difference because they: (1) provide improved learning environments for out of school children and children at risk of dropping out of school; (2) engage parents as partners and leaders in improving education for their children; (3) lead to more primary school grade levels being offered in rural communities; (4) reduce the distance that primary school age children must walk to school; (5) provide teachers with improved working conditions; (6) provide separate latrines for girls and boys; (7) result in increased primary school enrollment for boys and girls; and (8) ignite a long term community commitment to education and literacy.

In the next five years, buildOn will work towards the completion of more than 750 primary schools to be built in rural, isolated, and underserved communities in the developing world. Through this work, buildOn believes that parents and local ministries of education are critical partners in improving access to quality education for out of school children and children at risk of dropping out of primary school.

The true power of buildOn’s methodology resides in the fact that buildOn classrooms are constructed in partnership with the very people who benefit from them. When buildOn enters new countries and regions, it becomes a resource for communities and local governments who want to provide quality education for their students and improved working environments for teachers. Local communities initiate each project and own the school, and the Ministries of Education agree to provide teachers and curriculum.

Impact

"Humanity will not overcome the immense challenges we face unless we ensure that children get the quality education that equips them to play their part in the modern world." -- HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser