Schools built in Laos by Deborah Kay with Pencils of Promise

About My Campaign

I believe that every child deserves and education and building a school is something that I've always wanted to do.

So in Oct 2015, inspired by Adam Braun, an ex-Bainee who founded Pencils of Promise, a charity that builds schools in developing countries, I decided to start a fundraising campaign.

Instead of celebrating my birthday, I decided to ask my friends and family to help me build a school. I gave myself 12 months to raise US$25,000 and build one school.

But I did it in 46 days with 80 donors of the kindest, most generous and closest friends and a surprising large number of strangers donating large amounts.

Yet, a large proportion of my network was still untapped and a lot of friends had committed donations that had yet to be donated. So I committed to raising another US$50,000 to build another two schools

Over Christmas of 2015, I convinced six kids to give up their Christmas presents to donate to the campaign. I had a couple of rockstar kids on my team who made kick-ass videos which we posted on Facebook. What I learnt: Facebook can be an incredibly powerful tool. All I did was to tag their parents and post it on their walls, and we raised $4,500 because some good hearted friend would invariably see it and donate.

And before I knew it, we had raised $75,000.

A few years later, three schools were build.

Schools Built

Deborah Kay's Impact in Som Sanouk, Laos
Deborah Kay's Impact in Mak Phuok, Laos
Deborah Kay's Impact in Houay Yen, Laos

The Impact

The Schools Were Dedicated To

One school was dedicated to my favourite teacher at RJC, Mr Jamie Reeves. Before him, I hated school, but because of him, I went on to graduate with the second highest First at Cambridge University.

One school was dedicated to my parents' favourite priest Fr Ponnudurai.

The last one is to my family, my mom, my dad and my sister.