Monday, April 16, 2018

What happens when someone cares?

Eleven-year-old Abigail was selling herself on the streets of Liberia in exchange for clean drinking water until she met Katie Mayler, who had left her hometown in New Jersey 12 years earlier to volunteer for Samantha's Purse, a Christian relief organization supporting children. Abigail begged Katie to get her into school, which inspired Katie to start More than Me (MTM). It works with the Liberian Ministry of Education to rebuild the school system after 14 years of war.


In its first year, MTM sent five of the most vulnerable girls in Monrovia to a school that also provides them with healthcare, psychosocial support and food. By 2017, MTM was sending 1,500 girls to school, and their goal is to educate 250,000 kids by 2020. Liberia has several reasons to want girls educated. When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. When women and girls earn income, they invest 90% of it in their families, much more than men do. And there are fewer and fewer Abigails.

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