Becoming Unstoppable

Today I’m going to interrupt my usual blog post about everything photography and home decor to tell you about a charity that is near and dear to my heart. They are doing incredible work and I want everyone to know about them.

The Unstoppable Foundation was founded in Cynthia Kersey. Cynthia herself doesn’t define the Foundation as a charity —rather, it’s empowerment.

The ultimate end-goal of this foundation is for young girls to get into —and stay in—education.

Promoting education is hugely important to me. For a long time, I didn’t fully appreciate how lucky I was in Western world to have access to free, full-time education up until graduation.

I went to school in a safe building where I had access to school supplies, books and other learning materials.

My teachers had salaries.

And I took for granted the different factors that enabled me to stay in education: I had access to clean water at home, enough food and accessible healthcare.

I didn’t have to work as a child to provide for my family.

And my own children also benefited from these privileges.

That is what stands out to me about the Unstoppable Foundation. They know that providing children in deprived areas with an education requires more than just building schools, hiring teachers, handing out uniforms and waiting for students to turn up.

Because for most of these children, the obstacles that prevent them from being going to school are enormous.

Before a little girl in Western Africa can put on her uniform and walk to school, she might have a mountain of tasks standing between her and the school doors.

Consider this: In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours every year just hauling water. The bulk of this job is undertaken by women and girls. The water source might be many miles away on foot. It may not be clean.

Close to half a million children under the age of 5 are currently affected by acute malnutrition throughout Kenya. How can you expect to learn and thrive if you are lacking enough food to get through each day, or if the majority of every day is spent farming, gathering or cooking whatever you have?

Diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, typhoid, dysentery and a myriad of other waterborne diseases are widespread. Without access to proper medicine and sanitary conditions, even very treatable illnesses can be deadly.

The list of obstacles could go on and on.

The Unstoppable Foundation’s 5-pillar model ensures that these issues are tackled in the communities and families of young people in a way that implements permanent and sustainable change — enabling children to attend school without interruption.

These are just a few of the things the Foundation does: