Actress and humanitarian Katharine McPhee, and her husband Nick Cokas, have partnered with buildOn to expand our school building program to Burkina Faso, West Africa.
Currently ranked by the UN as the third economically poorest country in the world, Burkina Faso will be the seventh country where we build schools. Katharine and Nick have a longstanding commitment to the country, where they provided mosquito nets through Malaria No More and funded the construction of a school in Burkina Faso’s capital, Oagadougou.
Through this partnership, Katharine and Nick have funded our first two schools in Burkina Faso and committed to a longer-term relationship to support buildOn’s work in the U.S. and overseas.
“Investing in education and opportunity for young people is a major priority in our lives, and we are thrilled that with the help of buildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to improving education for the children of Burkina Faso. We believe this is just the beginning of a long-standing partnership with buildOn that will lead to increased opportunity and improved access to education for children here in the U.S. and overseas,” said McPhee.
“We have spent a great deal of time researching and learning about buildOn’s methodology, which provides people living in rural villages with the opportunity to be key players in improving education for their own children. We believe in buildOn’s mission because it’s not about any of us saving the people of Burkina Faso. It’s about us working together to bridge the opportunity gap so people can make a positive difference in their own lives,” added Cokas.
buildOn CEO & Founder, Jim Ziolkowski and students from buildOn’s afterschool programs in the South Bronx and Brooklyn are in the village of Taga to break ground on the first school funded by Katharine and Nick today!
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Photos by: Laura Hajar
