5 years. 38 million children.

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It’s 2010. And there are still 38 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to primary education.

Ten years ago, the Millennium Development Goals Summit made a plan to take a stand for education and committed to ensuring that every child in the world would have access to a free primary education by 2015. But at the Summit meeting this week, world leaders are claiming that the current rate of progress is not going to be good enough.

As it stands, 2015 will come and go and there will still be children who do not have the opportunity to go to school.

This is unacceptable. Statistics show that the completion of a primary education drastically reduces the likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS, decreases levels of infant mortality, increases participation in local and national government, and sets the foundation for a better community. Armed with this powerful knowledge, we cannot continue to let universal education slip to the backburner.

Building Tomorrow (BT), an international social-profit, is working hard to help make the goal of universal primary education (UPE) a reality. At a grassroots level, BT empowers youth on college campuses across the country to invest their resources, time and talents in providing access to education for thousands of children in sub-Saharan Africa. In line with BT’s cost-sharing model, communities, in-turn, donate the land and volunteer over 20,000 hours of self-labor to construct each academy.

Whether they are planning week-long bike-a-thons to raise money (Bike to Uganda), taking a stand for 24 hours to get noticed (the StandOff) or applying the skills they learn in the classroom to design clean water systems and the structure itself…their ultimate goal is one and the same: to support the construction of schools in sub-Saharan Africa so that millions of children no longer have to walk miles to get to a school, scribble their lessons in the dirt or gather under a tree to learn.

To date, Building Tomorrow and its network of young people have built classroom space for 1,500+ students in Uganda. We aim to double that by this time next year.

However, the only way the 2015 goal of universal primary education can be achieved is if everyone steps up to help. This is a global responsibility. It’s your responsibility. Where would you be without your right to an education?

As long as there are students in our world, in YOUR world, with a desire to learn and no place to do so, we will continue Building Tomorrow. Will you?

www.buildingtomorrow.org

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