Students from Glenbrook South High School’s club STAND for Peace worked together a few weekends ago at Glenview’s Summer Festival. The club fundraised this spring to sponsor a Matanya’s Hope child and were out again working to keep their child in school.
They are currently sponsoring Purity Nkabria, a girl entering high school thanks to their hard work. Purity is an extremely bright student who wouldn’t have been able to attend school beyond eighth grade without a sponsor.
Purity Nkabria
Stand for Peace is a global outreach club that began as Students Taking Action in Northern Darfur thus the STAND name. Over the years, as the genocide ended in Darfur they have moved on to focus on five areas of the world in need of humanitarian aid. The club focuses on human rights crises and takes a non-political stand to help make a difference to better lives. This year they raised money for Syrian refugees, which was donated to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in the fall. Their spring project was Matanya’s Hope. The club has committed to get Purity through her education as she already lost a sponsor before the club became involved. They also sent over a backpack full of donated school supplies for Purity at the end of the school year.
The bottom row of students is the current executive board. The top row is made up of seniors and a faculty advisor
The Student executive board of STAND is currently made up of Ruhi Bhaidani, Kate Hegay, Grace Kilpatrick and Maeve Plunkett. The faculty sponsors include Matthew Whipple who won the Power of One award from the Illinois Holocaust Museum earlier this spring for his work with the club and activism. The club is run by students who choose what projects to work on while the faculty help to ensure productivity with the students.
Matanya’s Hope is extremely thankful for the hard work the students of the club have put in to make enough money to sponsor Purity. The student board was at the festival all day on Saturday and members of the club worked throughout the day in shifts. One member of the club will be traveling to Kenya this year with Matanya’s Hope. Stay tuned and hopefully hear a blog from her about her experience in Kenya.
