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Making Dreams into Reality with #graduation4all

They want to be teachers, pilots, the first in their family to be a doctor… at Hope Community School in Zambia and Asociación Las Tías in Nicaragua, students dream big. Here at Spark, we just wrapped up our #graduation4all campaign, because we believe that every child should have the opportunity to go to school and reach their own graduation day.

Thanks to your direct support and to a generous matching grant, doubling all contributions over $50, we were able to surpass our goal of $5,000 of support for educational programming at our partner organizations, achieving a campaign total of $5,170 over just a few short weeks!

Over the last few weeks, we asked you to post pictures of your own graduations. Thank you to everyone who bravely posted their mullets, braces, and kindergarten snapshots. In return, Spark wants to share some photos of the incredible students served by our partners every day:

    

Why is education so important, especially in poorer countries like Zambia and Nicaragua?

• Education increases earnings and can lift people out of poverty. “On average, one year of education is estimated to increase wage earnings by 10%” (UNESCO).
• Education increases awareness about HIV prevention, critical in Zambia which has the 7th highest rate of adult HIV/AIDS prevalence.
• Education can reduce the incidence of stunting in children. If all women completed primary education, 1.7 million fewer children in the world would suffer from stunting.