The Kroo Bay Initiative

Imagine with us for a moment. You are a child. You are no more than ten years old. You live in a slum on the brink of the Atlantic Ocean, itself split by a stream filled with refuse that turns the water black. Every rain season brings with it flood and waterborne illnesses. Your opportunities are limited by the fact that your family cannot raise the funds to enroll you in school, let alone feed you consistently.

Now imagine your future: In the world's least developed country, with one of the highest infant mortality rates and lowest life expectancies on earth -- without a formal education -- what does your future look like?

That is the life of the average child in Kroo Bay, the largest and most marginalized slum in Sierra Leone. Reimagining that future is the purpose of the Kroo Bay Initiative (KBI), a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization founded in 2008 by two development practitioners who saw universal education as the door to better health, better living, and better lives for the children of Kroo Bay and Sierra Leone at large.

Our Mission and Vision

• Providing scholarships and school supplies to Kroo Bay children
• Equiping and financing a local women's vocational training program
• Financing microloans through established organizations in consultation with international lending partners (in progress)

Our vision in this sense is simple: KBI fights poverty in Sierra Leone by keeping children in school, women learning and working, and access to credit a viable opportunity for female entrepreneurs.

How You Can Help

You can help right now by visiting our section on Ways to Give! By making a contribution as low as $20 -- what you may usually use to go to the theater or for gas -- you can help us supply women and children in Kroo Bay with educational, vocational, and economic opportunities.

$20 could help us change a life, a family, a community, and, by extension, a country. Can you make a contribution today?