Breaking the Chain

Vital Stats

Riley C

Englewood, CO

  • people helped9500
  • People Doing It 10

The Problem

I consider education to be a basic human right. After discovering that one in every ten children worldwide has never seen the inside of a classroom, that millions of children are being forced into child labor, and that, in the U.S., approximately 1.2 million students drop out of school each year, I knew that I had to do whatever I could to change those statistics. I believe that the way to break the chains of poverty and exploitation of children is through education, since education gives children a life of choices. Unlike adults, children are powerless to help themselves, and so they need older people to be their advocates. I created my nonprofit Breaking the Chain to try to eliminate the bonds of illiteracy and poverty for children and I began to look for ways that would greatly impact child literacy both domestically and internationally.

Plan of Action

I created a nonprofit corporation called Breaking the Chain with the goal of breaking the bonds of illiteracy and poverty for children around the world. First, I raised money to build three schools in Africa, one in Kenya and two in Sierra Leone. I raised enough money to build schools and outfit them with books, desks, and teacher salaries, and I was also able to provide two of the villages with water purification systems and alternative income sources for the adults in the village, like goats and sewing machines, so the children can stay in school. Next, I created a literacy center for children living at a battered women’s shelter. I bought hundreds of books, bookshelves, bean bags, educational games and toys, art supplies, and other furnishings so that the children have a beautiful, happy, safe place to go to read and learn. I also purchased over a thousand new children’s books for Reach Out and Read and The Heart of America Foundation. This year, Breaking the Chain is focusing on an exciting new domestic program which I created, called Bookin’It, that is putting books into classrooms in low literacy schools around the U.S. I have also been speaking at schools around the country, to thousands of kids, about my books and how important reading and writing have been in my life, about Breaking the Chain, about how important their education is and I encourage them to take ownership of their education and to reach out and help others.
Go
Education
Homelessness and Poverty

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