In Humanities, we have been studying how to break the  poverty cycle. Our project for this term was to find the charity we think would be the most effective in breaking the poverty cycle, and make a ninety second pitch of why we chose this charity, pros and cons, etc.

In class, we researched tons of different charities, and narrowed it down to five for each student to choose from. The charities were:

1. K.I.V.A (micro-loans)
2. Malawi Girls on the Move (supporting girls education in Malawi where boys are the only ones getting an education)
3. Camfed (similar to Girls on the Move, except in a bigger area, Africa)
4. World Vision (you donate to this charity and buy (for example)  a cow, or chicken for a family)
5. Doctors without Borders (pretty self explanatory)

After these five were chosen, each student chose the one they would like to research and all the students wanting to research the same one were in a group. I chose Malawi Girls on the Move because I don’t think its fair that I, a girl goes to a Private School, learning hundreds of things each day, and there are some girls in parts of Africa that need to be married by twelve and pregnant by fifteen. My Humanities teacher showed my group a video called the girl effect. CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT. I will warn you, it is sad. It made my whole group and I break into tears because guess what? We are twelve too and we don’t have to worry about being married soon, or ready to have a baby in three years. This isn’t fair. Twelve year olds are still kids.

After choosing our charity, we had to research a bunch of information about them. After that, we put all the information into some sort of presentation. The best two presentations would be the charities we would raise money for in our Market Place. My group and I were all naturally very loud people, so we decided to do a speech/slideshow. I was sick on presentation day, so I was’t there to see the awesome presentations. My group didn’t win. K.I.V.A and Camfed won. Of course I was a little disappointed, but hey! We are still helping people.

After the presentations were over, we organized our Market Place themed fundraiser. We had to advertise it around the school on posters with the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

Who: Mrs. Lee’s Grade Six Humanities Class

Where: The Hallways of the Middle School

Why: To raise money for K.I.V.A and Camfed

When: March 13

What: Market Place

How: By selling items ranged from baked goods to crafts, we will make money and donate to our charities

Well, I think the advertisements worked! We had quite the turnout. I was in a group with my two friends and we baked 30 cookies, 8 large cupcakes  and 4 (might have been store bought…) croissants. We sold all but 12 cookies! We made a total of $42.89! The total amount of money our class made was $320.23! Every item was sold from 50 cents- 2$ so this amount of money is amazing! I am so glad that we will be helping people.

In conclusion, I think poverty is one of the world’s biggest problems right now. The people who can, should donate to help people see the world through a new dimension. Remember the next time you see a homeless person, flash them a smile. Make them feel special. It will make their day. I have added the links in blue for the charities if you needed some ideas for donating! Thanks for reading!