Nurturing Children Around the World
By Dr. Camille Brown
(Page 1 of 2)
 The Bakhita Fund was established June 2003 with the goal of helping children to receive an education. I founded this fund with the belief that every child deserves an education. I spent every vacation period visiting communities of children in need of educational assistance. Two years before forming the Fund, I visited schools on both the East and West Coasts of Africa. Limited resources, caused me to focus aid within the countries of Ghana and Benin. Both of these countries are situated on the Western shoreline of the African continent. During these two years, strong ties were formed with local business people, schools, guides,
elders and embassies in Ghana and Benin. It was these relationships that prompted the emergence of the Bakhita Fund.
This non-profit Fund was named in honor of St. Josephine Bakhita who was born in 1869 in the Sudan where she eventually endured captivity. Her longevity of enslavement ended in Italy while serving as a nurse maid in the Canossian's convent. Bakhita's freedom came because the Catholic Church and the Italian government had outlawed slavery, therefore, her master was unable to claim her after she sought asylum. Eventually, Bakhita became a Canossian Sister of Charity and was known as "The Universal Sister" due to her genuine care and prayers for all people regardless of their color.
The task of helping children around the world has been the focal point of the Bakhita Fund's board of directors. We have embraced the mission of "nurturing the spiritual and educational needs of children around the world". This is a grass roots effort totally geared to creating better educational environments for children. Since its inception, The Bakhita Fund has provided school supplies, uniforms and financial aid to children in Africa as well as the United States.
Currently, The Fund is working on a Christmas Campaign to provide
toys (this is vital as many of the children have never owned a toy but there is a national effort to increase learning through creative play), play clothes and food to orphaned children in Benin, West Africa. Bakhita is also pursuing permission from the government of Benin to build a school in the Ponton Village, near Porto Novo. The children in this village must walk 12 miles(6 miles each way) every day to the nearest school if they are to receive an education. Unfortunately this is the plight for many of Africa's children born into villages without schools or teachers. The good news in all of this is, once you are granted permission to build a school, the government will send teachers and pay their monthly salaries.
There are so many stories to tell about the children in
underprivileged countries who are literally starving for an education. In our years of traveling, we have witnessed a child diving into a river to obtain a pen from us as we sailed away from his village. Why was this so urgent? It seems that a writing instrument is the necessary item to attend school. If a child has a pen/pencil, they may attend school. How very different from an American student who drops their
utensil in the street or looses it without the slightest worry. These two very different human conditions are often too extreme to comprehend. Certainly, if nothing else, they tug at our emotional sensibilities and cause us to act for the sake of the children.
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