Africa

Money vs. Education

Eliza A Africa, Education

You were so proud of yourself when you graduated from Pre-k! Elementary school with its first EOGs and tests was soon left behind.

You come home blabbering about your locker and billions and billions of teachers in middle school. That too was soon forgotten.  Until high school. Little by little, the honor rolls where announced and caps flew into the air! EVERYONE was as happy as high school graduates! The world was perfect!

For you.

Do you see this picture? That is an African School House. Most of those people are adults and it isn’t very big. Imagine going to school in that thing.

In Africa, school isn’t free for everyone. Instead, parents have to pay for their students to go to school.  Many parents can’t afford that, so many kids don’t get to go to school.

Could you imagine having to fight for an education?  That is why I decided to loan to Tasiu.  He is looking for money to send his children to school.  I thought that every kid deserves the chance to learn.

 

Borrower image

Poverty is real, and I am helping!

By Eliza A.

Cobalt Crisis!!

Mathew L Africa

Everybody likes electronic devices, such as, an phone, iPad, or a computer. In the last decade, everyone has been drawn to the electronics of today.

But, what’s the science behind it…..

If you were to take the case and the cover off your phone, you would find the battery — the thing that powers your phone.

Image result for mined cobalt

If you weren’t aware, the battery is made out of an element called cobalt. Like almost every other element, cobalt is found underground. The majority of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Congo isn’t exactly the richest country. An average person will only make $489 per year. It’s a hard life there.

It isn’t easy to get the cobalt in the first place. The Africans mining the Cobalt in the Congo can spend as much as 24 hours at a time in a dark, cold tunnel, working with poisonous cobalt.

So, the people in the Congo struggle to make a good salary.  On a good day of mining, they will dig up about 200-250 pounds of cobalt, but make only make 2-3 dollars.

So while you enjoy the low costs of a new phone battery, people in the Congo are dying of the low salary.

So use the battery that you have, and consider yourself lucky. And then, do everything you can to help places like the DRC.  People there deserve a better life.

By: Mathew L. and Carson S.

Edited by: Sofia T and Kayla P