buildOn

buildOn’s Global School Construction Program provides rural communities in developing nations with access to education. For 25+ years, buildOn has mobilized villages in some of the poorest countries on the planet to build more than 1,100 schools that more than 150,000 children and adults attend every day.

We are breaking ground on a new school every two days with the help of parents and grandparents who have provided more than 1.9 million volunteer work days. We are currently building schools in Burkina Faso, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Senegal. Our methodology puts gender equality at the forefront and villagers in control. In many of the countries where we work, girls are not traditionally educated and there are few opportunities for adult women. buildOn’s agreement with each village ensures that girls are sent to school in equal numbers with boys and that women have access to adult education. Right now, 49% of students in buildOn schools are female.

Communities where we work have no adequate school structure – students are squeezed into dark and crumbling mud huts, or are taught under trees when the weather permits, or have to walk multiple miles to a neighboring village, or can’t attend school at all. buildOn provides funding, engineering, materials, skilled labor and project supervision. But, our methodology’s true power resides in the fact that buildOn classrooms are constructed in partnership with the very people who will be benefiting from them.