The Donor: Sue Tennant
The Gift: Raising $140,000 annually
The Cause: FreeSchools World Literacy
The Reason: To educate children in India, Bangladesh and Thailand
When Sue Tennant went to India in the early 1990s for a conference, she was overwhelmed by the poverty, particularly among women. She had seen poverty elsewhere, but the plight of illiterate women in India touched her.
"I was really appalled by the way the women had to work," Ms. Tennant recalled from her home in Collingwood, Ont. "It was just unbelievable to see them."
She returned to Canada eager to do something, but couldn't figure out how. Years passed and she turned her attention to other pursuits including running Silver Springs Retreat, a corporate and culinary retreat centre.
A few years ago, Ms. Tennant began chatting with a guest from Australia who mentioned a British aid worker, Mark Bloomfield, who was developing a schools project in India. Ms. Tennant was intrigued and got in touch with Mr. Bloomfield.
Together they created FreeSchools World Literacy in 2005. Rather than building schools, FreeSchools recruits teachers in remote villages, pays them a salary to teach local children and covers the costs of educational supplies. The organization works with local charities and village leaders to find teachers and donated space. Girls are given priority. "We tell families, 'You send your daughter first, then we will take your son,' " said Ms. Tennant, who visits Asia several times a year.
Today FreeSchools is educating about 4,500 children at 80 makeshift schools in India, Thailand and Bangladesh. Most of the programs are in remote villages where education is non-existent and human traffickers run rampant.
Ms. Tennant's work mainly involves raising about $140,000 annually to finance the project. "It only takes $15 per year to educate a child there," she said. FreeSchools is planning to build an actual school in India to accommodate visiting teachers from North America and run an adult education centre.
While she finds the fundraising and travel challenging, Ms. Tennant is overjoyed by the results. Asked to describe what it's like to visit one of the schools in action, she said: "It's just fantastic. It really is."