Richard Pfaff EarthCARE Team Raises Funds for the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya

The Richard Pfaff EarthCARE team is currently raising money towards a scholarship fund for high school students in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

The Dadaab refugee camp is comprised of three camps in Kenya holding more than 160,000 refugees, mostly from Ethiopia and Somalia. The average refugee spends 15 years of his/her life in the camp, without citizenship or basic rights in Kenya, and no home in their own country to return to. 22,481 school-aged children (48% of the camp’s school-aged children) are still not able to be enrolled in school. Most classes are taught by older students, not qualified teachers.

The camp has very little money to fund schooling programs, and no financial support whatsoever for post-secondary education. The few students who do finish their schooling in the camp’s one-room high school currently have no opportunity to pursue further education.

The Richard Pfaff EarthCARE team raises money for the scholarship fund via a healthy-food cart they initiated in their school, and a weekly pizza day they organize for the students. The food cart runs daily for ten minutes during first break, offering healthy alternatives (soup, fruit, cheese strings, milk, juice, granola bars) to vending machine snacks at a reasonable price. All proceeds from the food cart go to the Dadaab Refugee camp.

Combined with the food cart, the group holds a weekly pizza day, where pizza is sold to students for $2 a slice, encouraging students at Richard Pfaff to support the cause while enjoying a treat.

To date the Richard Pfaff EarthCARE group has raised $1100 for the Dadaab Refugee Scholarship Fund, well on the way to its target of $1500.