In the U.S. children are looking forward to the end of the school year and the carefree days of summer.

Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone, children are just now returning to school – schools that had been shut down for nine months during the worst part of the tragic Ebola outbreak in the country in the past year – ready and eager to resume their education.

While we are pleased that the country is returning to some semblance of normalcy as the outbreak winds down, we are concerned that for too many young children, returning to school is not an option as their parents, now out of work as the nation’s economy struggles to recover, can no longer afford school fees.

At Bread and Water for Africa® we know the value of an education and that’s why we build schools and classrooms, and support programs to pay students’ school fees, so that school is not an unaffordable luxury for today but a wise and necessary investment for the future.