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We started One World Unity in 2009. About a year before that, I was working as a child services coordinator at a homeless shelter in Virginia, while Robert was the youth coordinator of a church group in Sierra Leone. Both groups of kids, an ocean away from each other, were living hard, unstable lives. Robert and I saw in these kids the same sense of helplessness, always feeling like the victims of the unfortunate circumstances they were born into—something that made them feel different, if not less than their more fortunate peers.
Chance opportunity brought these two groups together as pen pals when Robert and I essentially had the same idea and looked to expand our kids’ outlook on the world. It was really a sight to see, homeless kids in Virginia building natural relationships with their Sierra Leonean counterparts. Kids are kids, and regardless of circumstance, they all have the same sorts of dreams, and they all shared their aspirations of growing up to become doctors, lawyers, athletes and presidents, no matter the hand they’d been dealt in life.
From this relationship, a funny thing happened which went on to inspire the founding of One World Unity. The American kids decided to steal from the homeless shelter, which is admittedly a harsh way of putting it. Nevertheless, they recognized how fortunate they were relative to their African friends, and to them it was obvious what should be done. There was paper, pens and books at the shelter—items that Robert’s group, whose families couldn’t even afford to send them to school, lacked. There was canned food, clothes, all of the basic necessities of life and education there at the shelter; why hold onto them while their friends were in need?
Noble as this thought was, we decided to refrain from sending the shelter’s supplies across the Atlantic and began looking for donations from the community for some of these items. Due to the temporary nature of the homeless shelter—kids move on to other shelters or ideally more permanent housing—over time these relationships became unsustainable, but the spirit of this first group of children carried on.
Robert’s youth group in Sierra Leone was brought together to provide these children with positive alternatives to essentially meandering about in the streets of Freetown. Here in America, we caught a glimpse at the humanity of these West African kids, and after what we saw in our shelter kids, it wasn’t possible to turn a blind eye to their situation. Without help, all of those dreams that they shared with their American friends, had no chance whatsoever of coming true, regardless of how hard they tried.
So, we established One World Unity as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the aim of providing these Sierra Leonean kids with some of the very basic tools that they’d need to carve out a future for themselves. Public school teachers don’t get paid very well in Sierra Leone, and quality teachers end up teaching at private schools, which leaves all but the wealthier kids with not necessarily the greatest teachers. So, we supplemented the pay of a handful of public school teachers by hiring them to teach after-school classes in a temporary classroom Robert set up—really just some sticks and tarps. These classes were for kids who wanted to go to school but couldn’t afford to. The financial barrier to attend school is startlingly low by first world standards, but if you’re living on a dollar a day, that barrier may be insurmountable. Parents love their kids and want them to be educated wherever you go in the world, but when it comes to choosing between feeding or educating them, there’s really no choice at all.
Solving this problem, for some, at least, was such low hanging fruit that we couldn’t ignore it, and we opened up our junior scholarship program, which was essentially a promise to a certain number of kids that we’d take care of their education for as long as they put in the hard work of learning, which they were all too eager to do. It’s easy to take school for granted. When it’s a given fact of life, as it is in America, it can often seem like an obligation to kids rather than an opportunity. Not so in Sierra Leone. These kids work. It’s quite clear to them what doors are opened by education, and they do not squander that opportunity.
So, we covered the costs of school supplies, uniforms, and tuition, and committed to continue doing so throughout their school years. This was, unsurprisingly, very popular in the community, and though the demand from families of kids out of school has always been too high for us to meet, we continued to grow throughout the years and accepted more and more kids into the junior scholarship program. Meanwhile, our after-school classes grew as well to provide some alternative to both kids who were out of school, as well as to help bring kids in our junior scholarship program back up to grade level, having missed possibly years of school already.
After rebuilding the temporary class building for what felt like the hundredth time (the rainy season in joke there), we decided to go ahead and build something more permanent. We purchased a piece of land and built a small, four room school—a little private school for kids who couldn’t afford to attend public school. We hired a good group of teachers and began the work of running a school. If we thought the demand for junior scholarships was high, we were overwhelmed with the lines of parents applying to send their kids to our little school. So, we grew.
As our school grew and our student population crossed the hundred mark, some of our first kids were finishing secondary school—and with good enough grades for college. Looking back to those initial dreams that these exact same kids were sharing with their American pen pals so long ago, and then having them looking for ways to go to college to actually achieve those dreams… Well, we couldn’t just call it quits there. University education is pennies on the dollar compared to American universities, but of course still significantly more expensive than grade school, so we were forced to limit how many we accepted, but went ahead and started our university scholarship program, where we again made a promise to continue paying for these kids’ schooling as long as they were succeeding at a Sierra Leonean university or trade school. The results of this have been fantastic. We’ve now seen kids come from no schooling whatsoever to graduating with medical degrees, law degrees, engineering degrees, and so much more. These same kids that were wowed by the books and regular schooling that their homeless American friends had were now men and women with good education, good jobs, and real opportunities. They had fulfilled those exact same dreams they shared all those years ago.
And of course they did. All they needed was an opportunity, and that’s all we did for them—give them the opportunity. They were still poorer than I can imagine. Still hungry. Still had all the life factors that being destitute in Sierra Leone had. But their education was protected, and it’s those who know what it is to have nothing that work the hardest for their dreams. I’m still blown away by the dedication and perseverance of these kids, and so proud to have played some part in their success. But of course we didn’t give them their careers or their success. They did that on their own. All they needed was the opportunity, and that’s what One World Unity’s there for.
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