Two Renton High School juniors and their teacher will travel abroad this summer to help build schools for girls in Nicaragua, as part of the district’s first endeavor with service and education group, buildOn.
Kim-Dung Nguyen and Adji Adam MBaye, both 17, will travel with their teacher Robert Conway to Nicaragua this summer to support efforts to give girls access to education in that country. They are doing the mission as part of Renton High’s chapter of buildOn.
That organization is focused on breaking “the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education” in emerging countries, according buildOn’s web site.
“I’m concerned about human rights and I want to help improve literacy around the world,” MBaye says, when asked why she will spend her summer working in Nicaragua.
Nguyen’s reason is also a commitment to help others: “It’s important to provide opportunities and education to children everywhere,” she says.
Both Kim and Adji moved to the U.S. in 2010: Kim from Vietnam and Adji from Senegal. They both speak eloquently about the opportunities that attending a school in America provides them; a reason why they now live here instead of their birth country, a district press release states.
This mission, the girls say, allows them to help others also have access to a better future.
Conway is the faculty advisor for the school’s newly created, buildOn club. The team will stay with host families in Nicaragua and hope to learn about life there and share their American experiences with those they meet.
This summer Conway and Renton High students will work to raise money for more students to travel abroad next summer to build more schools.
BuildOn is currently building schools in Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Senegal by providing the funding, engineering, materials, skilled labor and supervision. The village provides a gender balanced leadership team, volunteer labor and a promise that girls will attend the school in equal numbers with boys.
If interested in contributing to these efforts or for more information, contact Conway at robert.conway@rentonschools.us.
