Middle schoolers raise $1500 to empower women

Over the past week, students at McDougle Middle School have spent their lunchtimes collecting nearly $1,500 for A Ban Against Neglect, an organization based in Carrboro that works to empower women.

“All of the money that is raised will go toward women’s programs in Ghana, so it is really sponsoring their education,” said Lindsay Sebastian, sales and marketing manager for ABAN.

The students will continue collecting money throughout the week for the organization.

Sebastian said A Ban Against Neglect runs a women’s center in Aburi, Ghana. The program focuses on women’s empowerment through teaching basic life and business skills, she said.

“We try to develop ideas for them for what they can do. We try to identify their wants and give them the resources they need to provide for themselves and their families,” Sebastian said.

During lunchtime, student go around with a jar to collect donations and people are bringing in money, said Carolyn White, a librarian at McDougle Middle School.

“One day one student brought in $200. We’ve raised almost $1,500 in one week just by lunchtime donations,” she said.

The students will be selling bracelets made by the women at ABAN’s campus in Ghana in addition to collecting donations.

Sebastian presented to the students about the specific women they are helping by fundraising.

“It’s really powerful that they are learning that the women they are supporting had to drop out of school at the age they are at,” Sebastian said.

“I would like to think of it as if I was in the situation the girls are in and me not having an education,” McDougle seventh-grader Aliyah Ferrell said. “I would like people to help out with me and help me get an education even though I may have never met them.”

In addition to the fundraiser, the students have been learning about human rights and education for Learning without Borders week.

Eighth-grade students have been making posters about the articles of the Declaration of Human Rights, seventh-graders have made displays on child labor and sixth-graders have researched famous human rights advocates like Nelson Mandela, White said.

The students will also be reading and discussing education reform advocate Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

“I really think that it’s a week that is highly important and very necessary, because it’s good for other people to get a feel for what others are struggling with so we don’t take for granted what we have in the United States,” Ferrell said.

city@dailytarheel.com