Designated Offering
The Malala Fund
Each month, we designate a particular social service organization for financial support through special collections on Sundays. This April, our special offering goes to the Malala Fund.
The Malala Fund champions every girl’s right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education. Girls face significant barriers to such an education in many countries and regions of conflict in the world. The Malala Fund works with educators and advocates in these communities to help girls overcome these barriers.
Make a designated offering
Please give prayerful consideration to this month’s designated offering. To participate, make out a check to Church of the Good Samaritan, write “designated offering” on the memo line, and place it in the plate during the Sunday services offertory (or mail it to our office). You can also use the “designated offering” envelope found in the back of each pew.
At the end of each month, we write a single check from Good Sam to the organization we’ve designated for our support. Thank you for helping to ensure that this valuable service can continue!
Who is Malala?
Malala is a young woman from Pakistan who has dedicated her life to supporting education for girls around the world. The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan fights fiercely to keep girls out of school. (In fact, in Taliban-controlled areas it is illegal for girls to go to school after the age of 8.) One day, Malala was riding a school bus when a Taliban terrorist shot her in the head. She was flown to the UK and made a miraculous recovery. Her tireless activity in supporting girls’ education earned her the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015.
“I tell my story not because it is unique, but because it is the story of many girls.”
Malala and her father created the Fund, which supports girls’ education around the world. It has been especially active in Brazil, Nigeria, India and Pakistan. All girls have a better life as a result of going to school.
We wrote more about the Malala Fund for our Family Bingo Night Benefit. Take a look!
How the Fund Works
The Fund awards grants to local organizations working to build schools, train women as teachers, provide safe transportation to and from school, and support many other projects which further the goal of free education for all girls through grade 12. There are many obstacles for girls seeking an education, including long distances between school and home, dangerous roads, lack of textbooks and supplies, and, often, a culture which sees women as less important than men.
For example, Malala Fund has provided:
- Education for daughters of Syrian refugees (Lebanon, Turkey)
- Education for girls in villages, as well as daughters of parents working on tea plantations (India)
- Security for girls’ schools threatened by the terrorists of Boko Haram (Nigeria)
- School for Indigenous girls in the Amazon, as well as the urban poor (Brazil)
Please give what you can to the Fund.