A team of foreign and local students at National Chengchi University is raising funds for its “IMPACT” project aimed at establishing schools in Central America to improve early education for children living in urban slums.
Through an online crowdfunding campaign, the team has raised more than US$25,000 to reach its initial target of setting up a school in El Salvador, said Juan Diego Prudot, a 28-year-old IMBA student from Honduras, who is a cofounder of IMPACT.
The fundraising campaign is continuing, as the team hopes to raise another US$15,000 to achieve its goal of establishing another school in Honduras, said 28-year-old IMBA student Andres Escobar of El Salvador, another cofounder.
“We want to make it a worldwide project. We need at least two countries,” Escobar said.
The pair have contacts with nongovernmental organizations and local people in their home countries who can support the project, they said.
Escobar took a field trip to El Salvador in January and visited urban slums there to learn more about the needs of the people living there.
The neighborhoods have no early childhood schools and sometimes parents have to take their children to work, because there are no facilities providing day care for children, Escobar said.
The IMPACT project was initiated in November last year by Escobar, Prudot and two other classmates — Chen An-nung of Taiwan and Taylor Scobbie from Canada — when they worked together in an annual student competition to create a social business concept.
The core idea of the project is to build sustainable early learning schools for children in urban slums, he said.
The schools would cater for children up to six years old. Those aged three and below would receive day care in a safe environment while their parents are at work, he said.
The schools would provide formal education for children aged four to six, he added.
“This is the most important part in a child’s development,” he said, adding that a positive influence during those years would follow them for the rest of their lives.
They would be more likely to stay in schools, stay out of gangs and get better jobs, he said.
Prudot said early education can be fundamental to changing the lives of individuals, their families, their communities and even their nations.
“That’s what we want to do with IMPACT,” he said.
The team’s online crowdfunding campaign that ends on Friday next week is part of an annual student competition organized by the Hult Prize Foundation, which aims to identify and launch the most compelling social business ideas.
Winners receive US$1 million in seed capital, as well as mentorship and advice from the international business community.
The team from National Chengchi University is among about 30 teams from around the world that are entering the final round of the competition.
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