Verde Valley School received a grant of $50,000 from the E.E. Ford Foundation for the expansion of its Millennium Development Goals Project in Malawi, announced by Headmaster Paul Domingue.
The $50,000 grant will fund five additional years of work in Malawi by VVS’s Millennium Development Goals committee, and will be matched two to one by an additional $100,000 in gifts and grants from other sources. In addition, students involved in the MDG will raise $15,000 over three years to help fund its work.
Verde Valley School received a grant of $50,000 from the E.E. Ford Foundation for the expansion of its Millennium Development Goals Project in Malawi, announced by Headmaster Paul Domingue.
The $50,000 grant will fund five additional years of work in Malawi by VVS’s Millennium Development Goals committee, and will be matched two to one by an additional $100,000 in gifts and grants from other sources. In addition, students involved in the MDG will raise $15,000 over three years to help fund its work.
In 2005, VVS received a $50,000 gift from a Sedona-area attorneys Steve and Anita Daw-son to enable the school to align itself with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and to permit students at VVS to have direct experiences related to the MDG.
A committee of concerned students and faculty formed and a full year’s educational and planning work culminated with the adoption of a Malawian village by VVS students, 10 of whom traveled there for three weeks with two faculty members in the spring of 2007.
Not wanting to deplete the corpus of the gift for travel expenses, the VVS students did many fundraising projects so that the gift could be devoted to direct outreach projects. These projects included: installation of a solar-powered lighting system for the local elementary school to permit after-dark study; distribution of mosquito nets to help combat malaria; stuccoing and painting classrooms; repairing beds in the maternity ward of a local health clinic; and distributing medical supplies to the clinic and educational supplies to school.
Students lived with African families, participating in family life and learning directly what it means to grow up in what the UN designates a “red” [critically underdeveloped] nation. Upon returning to school, the group shared its experiences with the rest of the school community, inspiring others to join the committee and continue the school’s commitment to the village.
The VVS Millennium Development Goals committee will use the grant, matching gifts, and student-generated revenues to fund five more annual trips to Malawi. In addition to underwriting travel expenses, the grant provides critical funding for additional development projects, including irrigation, disease and hunger prevention, and health and primary education.
This year, VVS adopted the highly regarded International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme as its sole curriculum. The mission statements of the IB and VVS are so close as to be indistinguishable. Verde Valley’s adoption of the IB was a natural evolution and a validation of the school’s commitment to global education. An equally important change has been the recent land lease of 50 acres of the campus for the creation of Camp Soaring Eagle, an aspiring member of Paul Newman’s Association of Hole in the Wall Camps.
Verde Valley School students are committed to the Millennium Goals’ call to action issued by the United Nations and dedicated to doing their part to help however possible.
