World Over

Caravan to Class

Nine young women in Mali, a country perhaps better known for its military takeovers, are now on the road to new lives filled with untold possibilities. Recipients of Caravan to Class’s Bourse Jackie scholarships, each woman completes an intensive English course as well as attends university, with some graduating this year and already promised jobs.

Barry Hoffner began Caravan to Class after attending Mali’s famous desert music festival. Upon learning about the dearth of educational opportunities available to Mali children, Barry began to build schools in local villages. As Barry noted, “Imagine a world … where no matter where a child lives, the fundamental right of education is assured.” To ensure that those children break the cycle of illiteracy that had plagued their ancestors for years, Caravan to Class has constructed 15 schools with a 16th planned for late 2021.

Our funds are used to underwrite university scholarships.

Breaking the Chain Through Education

It could be the biggest social studies project ever, beginning in a Metuchen (NJ) High School classroom and reaching 5,000 miles west to Africa.

In 2006, teacher Evan Robbins read about child enslavement in Ghana and brought the story to his students. Together, they dived into the issue and committed to act. Breaking the Chain Through Education grew as successive classes of Evan’s built community and global partnerships to increase awareness, raise funds, rescue Ghanaian children, and put them on a path to long-term success and independence.

BTCTE helped build a school in the Lake Volta region and is currently helping to support 90 formerly trafficked children to end cycles of poverty that lead to child slavery.

Our funds help underwrite the organization’s minimal overhead.

Gabriel Project Mumbai

Jacob Sztokman was in Mumbai, India and witnessed abject need in city slums. The exposure shook him — to the extent that he abandoned his career to establish Gabriel Project Mumbai and uplift lives in challenged urban areas and rural villages.

GPM uses a holistic model of individual and community empowerment, recognizing that education, health care, nutrition, and livelihoods are mutually supporting goals. For example, a GPF-supported project gives women the opportunity to cook nutritious meals for school children, and also encourages them to prepare food for public sale … creating income through social enterprise.

As the pandemic takes its toll in GPM communities, the organization’s Operation CoVER elevates hygiene programs, emergency relief, and vaccination education and outreach. Our funds support GPM’s nutrition program and the purchase of a staff vehicle.

Survivor Mitzvah Project

In 2001, Zane Buzby set out to discover her roots in Eastern Europe. What she found were some of the last survivors of the Holocaust, all but forgotten, living in extreme poverty. So she founded The Survivor Mitzvah Project which now helps 2,500 individuals in nine countries, providing funds for food, heat and shelter. “The money is lifesaving,” Zane says, “but the connections are equally lifesaving.” SMP is writing a more hopeful final chapter to the Holocaust, she adds — “one of kindness and compassion, what they finally deserve at the end of their lives.” SMP also has created an invaluable Holocaust Educational Archive, including hundreds of hours of video of survivors and rescuersand over 20,000 pages of handwritten testimonies from survivors in Eastern Europe and The Baltics.

Homecare became nearly impossible during the pandemic. SMP hired caregivers and provided PPE so that food and medical help could still be delivered to the most vulnerable. Our funds underwrite survivors’ needs.