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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

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Paly graduates change student lives in Tanzania

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Severson and Perrault at Lugalo Secondary School, Tanzania, in 2009. – Courtesy of The School FundThree Palo Alto High School graduates of the class of 2007 are beginning the second year of their person-to-person funding platform, The School Fund, which raises tuition for students in developing countries.

While The School Fund was officially launched in August 2009, inspiration for the project, a website that allows donors to give money and communicate with the students they are funding, began the summer after the three classmates — President Matt Severson, Technology Officer Andrew Perrault, and Vice President of Strategy and Development Roxana Moussavian — graduated from Paly in 2007.

“I first started caring about Africa when I was a student at Paly, and believe that high school students have lots of energy and interest, but are often times looking for a cause or project to throw this energy and interest behind,” Severson said.

During the summer of 2007, Severson (Class of 2011 at Brown University) and Perrault (Class of 2011 at Cornell University), traveled to Kenya to helped out at an orphanage for three weeks. After the trip, the graduates planned to stay four days in Tanzania to safari and relax; there, they met the source of their inspiration: a young student named John Medo.

According to Severson, Medo was about to finish primary school, and although he was ranked near the top of his class and had passed his exam, he would not be able to attend secondary school because his family could not afford the $150 yearly school fee.

Severson decided to fund Medo’s tuition so he could continue his journey for a better life, and Medo became the first “fundee” to benefit from them.

After leaving for college, the students continued to stay connected and bounce ideas off each other and the project grew. After two years of expanding on the idea, they reunited in Palo Alto in August 2009. The trio hosted a launch party inviting family, friends and teachers, and The School Fund was born. Moussavian (Class of 2011 at University of Pennsylvania) joined the team after hearing about Severson’s idea for starting a tuition-funding project at the launch party.

The first year of the platform brought both success and various trials, according to Moussavian.

Logistical problems are just the first of many problems that they ran into. In addition to the Paly graduates, The School Fund team consists of other college students, all from different schools from Pennsylvania to New York. The distance between them only allows the members to meet up with each other one to three times a year. However, they talk to each other online almost every day, according to Moussavian.

“We’re [the team] all college students, we do this part-time, and we don’t get paid,” Moussavian said. “We do this because its fun and we want to do it.”

Moussavian and her teammates find time to run The School Fund in addition to school work, extra-curriculars and job applications.

“It’s difficult not to devote yourself partially after you’ve met those kids personally,” Moussavian said.

The language and background barriers pose difficulties for the team in earning trust from local organizations in Tanzania. Coming from privileged families in a wealthy country, the team has been working to show the Tanzanian community, especially the adults who have been working in the education system for years, that they have the same goals in mind despite their many differences.

“The School Fund is founded on the belief that people in the developing world and the people in the developed world have much to learn from one another and can each benefit from communication,” Severson said.

In the first year, The School Fund began with 32 students all from two schools, all of whom had their tuition fully paid for. This summer, the platform has expanded to funding 150 students, including the initial group of 32, from 15 different schools.

The School Fund currently only includes students in Tanzania due to Severson’s connection to Medo; however, the team hopes to expand to Zimbabwe, Latin America, southeast Asia and other parts of the world, according to Moussavian.

Severson and Moussavian visited Paly students last month to encourage students to inform their parents and peers that education is not free everywhere and that the solution to overcoming the problem of prematurely-cut education is easy. School fees are usually around $150 a year. A Paly student could easily pay this fee if they made small sacrifices in their everyday life.

“I would like, first and foremost, for Paly students to realize that there is a whole other way of life out there, hundreds of other ways of life in fact,” Severson said. “If The School Fund plays some role in getting Paly students aware and excited about international affairs, I will consider our presence at Paly a success.”

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