Global Activism: ‘Every Child is My Child’ helps kids in Rwanda and Burundi

Global Activism: ‘Every Child is My Child’ helps kids in Rwanda and Burundi
Global Activism: ‘Every Child is My Child’ helps kids in Rwanda and Burundi

Global Activism: ‘Every Child is My Child’ helps kids in Rwanda and Burundi

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.
For our Global Activism series, we first spoke in 2012 with former high school teacher, Elizabeth Powley. She believes that “every child has the right to learn.” She has a special love for the children of Africa’s Great Lakes region (Rwanda and Burundi). Powley founded the NGO, Every Child is My Child, because she envisions a world in which “every girl and boy in Africa has access to secondary school.” She is also executive director of Heartland Alliance International - part of Heartland Alliance, the Chicago-based group that “helps endangered populations — particularly the poor, the isolated, and the displaced.” Powley is back to update us on her goal for “communities [to] see an entire generation of students educated – for the first time – beyond the elementary school level.” PHOTO: Elizabeth Powley, founder of Every Child is My Child, with the group’s first ever high school graduates, Victor and Vincent, in Mageyo, Bujumbura, Burundi. (Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Powley/Every Child is My Child)