Hi, my name is Talia. I am raising money for my Bat Mitzvah project. For those who don't know, a Bat Mitzvah is a coming of age tradition in Judaism that happens usually around when you are 13 or 14. A "Mitzvah" is like a good deed, or giving back to your community.
My grandmother, Carol Mason, has worked at Internally Displaced Peoples camps (or IDP camps) in Nigeria for some time, but I never really knew the details until about 3 years ago, when I met Ibrahim Dauda, the head teacher of The Montessori School for Peace located in an IDP camp in Nigeria. He came to the US for 1 year of training in the Montessori approach to education. His story, along with many others, of escaping the Boko Haram, is captured in the book "We Bear It in Tears" that my grandmother co-authored. In that book, I read about all the people that had their lives changed in mere days by the Boko Haram, a terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria.
The Montessori School for Peace was started at the IDP camp to provide an education to the displaced children and to teach the new generation of survivors about reconciliation and unity. I learned that only the primary school students are funded currently by an NGO, but that Preschoolers are not and Jr and Sr High students, moving on from the School for Peace, have to pay hefty exam fees in order to move through the Nigerian school system.
I want to raise money for the 67 preschoolers currently at the IDP camp, and for the 16 junior and senior students facing exam fees. It costs just 10 USD to fund a preschooler for one year, and about 30 USD per exam fee. When I think about other kids my age, having their rights as human beings taken from them and they are still here, wanting to learn, and have plans for their future, I want them to have the same recources and support that I do. So I am asking you, please, to help me get to my goal of $1,170, to fund these students towards a brighter future.
