Sri Lanka, Schools, and You. Supporting children during a crisis.

The island nation of Sri Lanka has been in the news often recently, and the news has been depressing. There are food shortages and inflation is out of control. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 6.2 million Sri Lankans are food insecure as its inflation hit 93.7% in August. There seems to be no end of the chaos is in sight.

Sri Lanka has a troubled past with religious and ethnic tensions. Even the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a guerrilla organization, did not bring lasting peace or prosperity. And China has been able to assert control over parts of the economy due to debt that Sri Lanka cannot pay. 

Fortunately, schools that the Bill Cook Foundation is helping to build are providing education and community stability in rural areas in the interior of the country. The story of our involvement is a good illustration of how we choose projects and how we bring them to fulfillment.

A few years ago, I gave a lecture about the Italian Renaissance and St Francis of Assisi at the home of one of our biggest donors.  Afterward, I had a conversation with one of the attendees, emeritus Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco, William Swing.  His Excellency formed United Religions International (www.uri.org) to bring together people of different faiths, and to have them work together for the good of all people. No place is more idea for URI than Sri Lanka, which has significant Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities. 

As I talked to Bishop Swing about our foundation, he suggested that I visit the island and meet with Ahangomage Ariyaratne, the founder of an organization called Sarvodaya and winner of the Gandhi Peace Prize.  He invited me to his home, and over a home-cooked meal, I explained what the BCF did. He urged me to go to the rural center of Sri Lanka to see the needs of small villages for pre-schools.  He explained that not only was a preschool important for the children of a village, but it would also serve as a gathering place for villagers to meet with Sarvodaya teams who travel to teach peace and tolerance to villagers.  Each preschool would also have a microlending bank, and serve as an important social center for the community. 

Bill meets with truly appreciative students, teachers, and parents.

I did indeed visit the center of Sri Lanka, meeting with clerics of all religions and also learning a lot of history.  Oh, and my driver almost hit an elephant!  By the time of my second visit, there were three preschools that we had built that were already functioning and three more that I dedicated with much joy. 

These schools cost little to build, about $5000, each, because the people of the village do the construction with materials we purchase.  We, of course, need the continued support of our generous donors.  There are, as you might imagine, many villages still in need of preschools, with thousands of needy children and their families. Thank you for your continued support!

'Nomadland' breakout star pays it forward to the Bill Cook Foundation

Charlene Swankie in a still from Nomadland. © Searchlight Pictures

Sudan to Sri Lanka: Bill Cook Foundation Update

Supporting the gift of literacy for girls in South Sudan

The literacy rate of South Sudanese women is about 10%. The Bill Cook Foundation is doing something to change that. We are the principal funder of the first high school for girls in South Sudan, in the town of Mayen Abun. To date, we have been supporting an elementary school for girls, and the Bill Cook High School—which is 90% boys. Now, the first high school for girls is under construction, and its six classrooms and its toilets are all funded by our foundation. Of course, schools need teachers, and the foundation is also paying to train women teachers and hire a woman principal. We are on track for a January 2023 dedication and expect several hundred girls to enroll. We are being cheered on by Natalina Edward, South Sudan’s Ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and one of the highest ranking women in the nation’s government. Please consider donating today to support girls in South Sudan.

Recovering from hurricanes in Honduras

The Bill Cook Foundation often partners with other like-minded organizations, which magnifies the impact of your donation. One of the newest commitments for the foundation is the First Responders for Children, a small American charity in South Carolina. First Responders has several programs in and around the town of Copan, Honduras. Our support is for school supplies, and to give lots of encouragement to the children of the coffee farmers who live in the area. Last year, there was virtually no crop because of hurricanes. Thanks to your support, we have been sending school supplies, which we replenish periodically. This summer we will be sending an intern, a rising senior at Indiana University and a graduate of my alma mater, Arsenal Tech HS in Indianapolis. Johnathan Bautista will deliver even more school supplies, along with a healthy serving of hope to these kids.

Keeping the walls from crumbling in Kenya

We support several schools in the poorest neighborhoods of Nairobi, Kenya. One school is Baraka za Ibrahim, deep inside the neighborhood of Kibera. It was founded by a wonderful woman named Praxedes, who, unfortunately, died last year. However, her legacy lives on. Out of sheer will, she created a school that educates more than 300 of the neediest children. While the walls need constant repairs, the school remains a citadel of hope. As the school’s biggest contributor, our foundation has kept the school from closing. Thank you. 

Support for pre-schools in Sri Lanka

Through a meeting with Episcopal Bishop Emeritus William Swing of San Francisco, I learned about an interfaith organization in Sri Lanka, United Religions Initiative (URI). When I met the founder in Colombo, he suggested that the Bill Cook Foundation would do great good by funding the building of pre-schools in remote villages in the nation’s interior. So far, we have built six. Actually, we buy the building materials, and the people of the village do the building. Not only do the children get a good start to their education, but the facility is used as a meeting place to bring together locals to discuss religious diversity and ways to live and work with one another peacefully. And each school also has a micro lending bank, helping to support small family businesses.

Orphans of Agent Orange in Vietnam

Our foundation supports two orphanages in the city of Bien Hoa, near Saigon—one run by the government and the other by nuns. The government orphanage has severely disabled children, primarily 4th generation victims of Agent Orange. We have provided simple yet critical educational toys for these children. At the Be Tho orphanage, we are providing exercise instruction for their most disabled children, and we pay for schooling for all of those who qualify for high school. 

As we are thinking about the children we support here at the Bill Cook Foundation, let us remember those in Ukraine. Our dollars are much needed and much appreciated at the Bill Cook Foundation, and beyond. And for anything you can give, we are so very grateful.

With sincere thanks,
Bill Cook

Giving the gift of education.

Roma children going to a school in Pristina, Kosovo, supported in part by the Bill Cook Foundation.

Supporting the Bill Cook Foundation isn’t just about giving money. It’s about giving the gift of education, which has been proven time and again as the key to lifting individuals and their families out of poverty.

This Giving Tuesday is the perfect time to demonstrate your belief in the transformative power of education. The Bill Cook Foundation is proving that power by providing for the education of thousands of the children living in the most challenging and poorest places on the planet.

Your support makes education possible in places like this school in Bangladesh.

From Kenya to Laos, the Philippines to Equatorial Guinea, your investment in the Bill Cook Foundation is creating opportunities for children and their communities. How? We support elementary and high school education for children by paying for some or all of the children’s school fees, providing transportation and housing, and equipping schools in ways that make learning possible.

We are building schools where there were none, installing everything from toilets to science labs to libraries. We are providing athletic equipment and musical instruments. All to give the poorest students on the planet a chance to succeed. 

The Bill Cook Foundation helped repair the roof over her head at an orphanage in Myanmar. Thank you for your support.

It's all possible because of you, our generous donors. We couldn’t do anything without the support of people who want to share their abundance with those who have little or none.

This #GivingTuesday children need your help more than ever. Help us reach our goal of $25,000 this Tuesday, November 30. Your support is transforming lives from South Sudan to Haiti.

Please click Donate . Or you can also send a check to the Bill Cook Foundation, 3 Oak Street, Geneseo, NY 14454. If you wish to wire money or donate stock, contact me at bill@billcookfoundation.org for instructions. Your gift is appreciated by all the children we support.

Be well,

Bill Cook

We are weavers: Connecting good people doing great work.

Cathy Groenendijk, beaming along with children in her program, Confident Children out of Conflict.

I first met Cathy Groenendijk, a Ugandan, in Juba, South Sudan. She runs an extraordinary organization named, Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC), which provides a home and support for 100 girls and a few boys. I learned about CCC simply by doing a Google search because I knew I wanted our Foundation to work in South Sudan— a country torn apart by war and poverty.

The Bill Cook Foundation provides CCC with several types of support for the children. First, through Cathy, I met a girl named Mary who had been tragically burned in a fire in a refugee camp near Juba (with Cathy, one spends a lot of times visiting camps and slums).  The Bill Cook Foundation had the connections and the loyal donors (you!) that allowed Mary to have several reconstructive surgeries over the course of a year at the famous child burn center, Coaniquem, in Santiago, Chile.

Cathy returned to Uganda from South Sudan, taking some girls including Mary and boys with her so she could care for them, get the medical care that they needed, and start them in appropriate schools. 

In the meantime, I was contacted by Shaban Lutaaya, who grew up in a slum in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. He wrote to me because he had no organization and no bank account, but was working hard to help these children who looked a lot like he did at their age. He took me along the food distribution effort that he did twice a week for about 50 kids. I thought it would be good to invite Cathy to meet Shaban. I was busy passing out food, not an easy job because some of the bigger kids were really hungry and did not want to wait till the little ones were fed. Only after the boys vanished into the streets did I learn that Cathy had ‘interviewed’ every boy to learn how many were ready to attend school. She had 14 names. And Cathy, who is quite connected in Uganda, knew of schools that would take them. So, you and the Bill Cook Foundation provided school fees for those 14. Twelve attend a boarding school outside Kampala while two older boys attended a Muslim boarding school in the city.

Shaban Lutaaya and a few of the boys at Hope for the Voiceless.

Cathy worked with Shaban to create Hope for the Voiceless, helping with everything from establishing a bank account to creating the structure for the organization. And Cathy got the Bill Cook Foundation to provide grants for educating the children she brought from Juba. I visited Bero, a boy born with deformed legs whom Cathy had found on the streets. She told me that everyone agreed that he would never walk. Well, those people may know science, but they did not know Bero. He would watch children playing, and he so wanted to play that he largely willed himself to walk.  Often that meant walking a few steps and falling and getting right up and a few more steps and falling and getting up and….  For Bero and a few others, the Bill Cook Foundation pledged to support them in as much education as they could get and use.

The determined Bero with Bill.

Cathy also wrote me about an elementary school in a slum that desperately needed toilets. So, how do I get money for toilets, I wondered? This was not in my fundraising plans. But, my 17-year-old grandson Gabriel Quintero asked if I had a project that the National Honor Society of West Irondequoit High School in suburban Rochester, NY could fundraise for. A light bulb went on!  I told him about the need for toilets but asked whether the NHS would buy into it. They did. Their gift, combined with some general funds from the Bill Cook Foundation, made it possible to provide for the building of toilets, which also are used by nearby residents. I took Gabriel to Kampala, and he and I had the great honor of dedicating toilets. 

Toilets in Kampala, Uganda—funded by a high school in Irondequoit, NY, and the Bill Cook Foundation.

Shaban has also expanded his work.  He is active in feeding children and some adults during the Covid pandemic. He asked the Bill Cook Foundation to fund that project, and we do. I was also able to obtain about 1,000 books for Hope for the Voiceless, so that there was some instruction that goes on during time when schools are shut. The Foundation is working with the Good Steward Global Initiative, a charity founded by Mark Cotham in Houston.  I learned of Mark’s work to collect books and ship them to places without books from his brother, who had been on a tour I had led.  The Bill Cook Foundation had bought a shipment of 15,000 books to be distributed in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan.  The 1,000 books that went to Hope for the Voiceless are of priceless importance.

Needless to say, COVID-19 has interrupted all of our work, but it takes more than a pandemic to stop Cathy and Shaban and the children they serve.  The two oldest boys, the ones in the Muslim high school, help Shaban in the slum by delivering food. 

Joon Yang of Raise Uganda Now, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Bill Cook Foundation.

Uganda’s problems have been affected not only by the pandemic but by a violent election that predictably favored Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been in power since 1986, and the international community has agreed that it was not a fair election. And Shaban had serious medical problems that involved expensive surgery. A member of our Board of Advisors, Joon Yang, who is president of his own 501(c)3 charity in Uganda, RUN (www.raiseugandanow.org), which our Foundation supports, decided to do an online fundraiser for Shaban and raised more than enough to pay for his surgery. 

Cathy’s work continues with our help and with major support from Brandon Stanton, bestselling author of Humans of New York and more recently Humans.  Shaban’s work continues and expands; the Bill Cook Foundation is the link between the two of them. One of our next projects will be buying equipment so some children in Kampala’s slums will be able to play soccer. The Bill Cook Foundation has experience with soccer in Uganda. Joon Yang’s RUN has a soccer program that we fund—the Bill Football Club.  We provided uniforms and shoes and basic equipment. The only requirement to belong is to agree to stay in school.  And we pay the school fees for all of the kids on our team who need help.

The Bill Football Club in Uganda.

The Bill Cook Foundation is a weaver—we take initially unrelated elements and find ways to weave them together for the good of all. Think of the pieces. The Bill Cook Foundation and all of its donors, Cathy, CCC, Mary, the individuals and organizations that made Mary’s miraculous recovery possible including World of Children and Coaniquem in Chile, Shaban Lutaaya, Hope for the Voiceless,  National Honor Society of West Irondequoit High School, Good Steward Global Initiative, Raise Uganda now, Humans of New York, and several other individuals and organizations.

This is what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Thank you for your support,
Bill Cook

Beautiful Mary, having received life-changing surgery for her burns. Thank you, supporters of the Bill Cook Foundation, dozens of others, including the World of Children and Coaniquem in Chile.

Bill Cook and Cathy Groenendijk: Weavers.

Attending University in Laos, thanks to the Bill Cook Foundation

With Thanksgiving 2020

As most of you know, the Bill Cook Foundation provides access to education for thousands of children across the globe. Many of our students receive their main meals of the day at their school. Unfortunately, many of these schools were forced to close because of the pandemic.
The Bill Cook Foundations is responding. We are helping to feed families, including children, parents and grandparents.  The food is primarily rice, cornmeal, cooking oil, and perhaps some fresh fruit.  Courageous people, including some of the children, take the food from home to home where social distancing is impossible.
In Cameroon we support students with housing and school fees who have been displaced by civil war and now live in the two large cities, Douala and Yaounde.  Now, we’re also feeding them. In Kampala, Uganda, we have placed 13 boys who lived on the street in boarding schools.  Now we are actively searching for housing so that they do not go back to the streets. 
We know nearly everyone is stretched thin these days. But if you can, please consider a donation to the Bill Cook Foundation to support these children and their families. We will continue to feed their bodies even if our schools can’t currently feed their minds. Thank you for your continued support. 

Exercising the mind—and body—in Vietnam.

Be Tho is an orphanage in Bien Hoa, Vietnam, run by Sr. Maria Daniel Vu Thi Vinh. Thanks to your support, the Bill Cook Foundation pays school fees for about 50 of the children. The orphanage also has some older children with severe disabilities, in some cases caused by Agent Orange. These kids do not have activities designed for them, and the Sisters must take care of the little ones, prepare food and a hundred other tasks. I suggested that they hire a part time trainer to teach the boys exercises according to their abilities. The Sisters are enthusiastic, but of course a trained therapist will cost a few thousand dollars per year.  I would like to find a sponsor for this ‘gift’ to the disabled children of Be Tho. This is a unique opportunity to bring direct relief to those still suffering from the aftermath of Agent Orange and the war in Vietnam.

Learning during a civil war.

Although we do not read much about it in our newspapers, there is a civil war in Cameroon.  he Anglophone region—about 20% of the population of Cameroon— has an independence movement even while the Francophone rulers of the nation have continued to carry out acts of violence. And when that war is not flaring up, some in the Anglophone region attack recent Muslim refugees from a national disaster (About 35 years ago, about 1700 people were killed in a natural explosion). The nearby population, overwhelmingly Muslim, fled into an area of the Anglophone region near the city of Wum.

The Bill Cook Foundation funded solar panels for a school in a nearby village, but the school was shut down, citizens fled, and the solar panels have unsurprisingly disappeared.  We are now supporting seven young men and women who are living in Douala, the largest city, and attending school in French. In Yaounde, the capital, there is a school containing 120 IDPs (internally displaced persons) that teaches younger children in their native English. I have visited both places and met many of the children and some of the teachers.  They do good work in almost unimaginable situations. The total cost to support all of these children is $33,000 per year.  We could really use sponsors for groups of 10 of the children at a cost of about $2,000 per year, and we will need commitments for several years. Please consider become a sponsor, and donating to the Bill Cook Foundation.

Global predicament: a plea for food during a global pandemic.

Our day students and all of our students in boarding schools depend on food at school. For the day schoolers, it is their main—and sometimes their only—meal.  In many places, we provide meals for children during school recesses, and even on Sunday.

Almost every day we get pleas to provide food for “our kids” during the pandemic. In about 4 weeks, we have sent almost $50,000 in food aid to children and university students whom we sponsor in Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Slovakia, Mexico, and Guyana—across 5 continents.  And we will get repeat and new requests regularly as long as schools are closed.

Of course, no one is in school now, and families are desperate.

In some cases, we are asked to feed families, in part because children really cannot go to places where during regular times we could bring them together, but also because many of the parents of the very poor are part of the informal economy or are day laborers. They have no safety net.

The Bill Cook Foundations is responding. We are feeding families, some of which are quite large with many children and grandparents. The food is primarily rice, cornmeal, cooking oil, and perhaps some fresh fruit.  Courageous people, including some of the children, take the food from home to home in slums where social distancing is impossible.

We also have situations in which children we are helping have no homes to go to or cannot go to their homes. In Cameroon we support with school fees and housing students who have been displaced by civil war and now live in the two large cities, Douala and Yaounde. Their village was destroyed during civil violence. We did not provide food for them because they ate at school. Now we feed them. In Kampala, Uganda, we have placed 13 boys who lived on the street in boarding schools. We are actively searching for housing so that they do not go back to the streets. We have a family of three college-age girls and one high school boy who live with grandparents.  We are taking them food tomorrow. 

We know nearly everyone is stretched thin these days. But if you can, please consider a donation to the Bill Cook Foundation to support these children and their families. We will continue to feed their bodies even if our schools can’t currently feed their minds. Thank you for your continued support.

Hope made real, and his name is Julius.

Hope. This is not a moment in time when this virtue is much thought about as we keep our distance from one another. So, here is a story of HOPE. Two years ago, I met Julius, a glue-addicted homeless teenager in the Nairobi slum of Mathare. He came to a feeding program sponsored by Mamma Africa School, which is supported by the Bill Cook Foundation, where I met him. He told me he wanted to get off drugs and back to school; he did not seem hopeful. I introduced him to Father David Kamau and Brother Mathew Fahari. He went through a detox program, and the Foundation paid all his expenses to enroll in a boarding school. A few weeks ago, he came back to Mathare so I could meet with him because the day I was near his boarding school, a storm closed the access road. He volunteered to pass out food to those in need just as I had handed him food two years ago. Julius brought his two younger brothers and is now their guide to a better life. Julius gives us all HOPE. I told Julius that he was one of the bravest people I have ever met. I meant it because he had the courage to take a radically different and unknown and difficult path. HOPE! During this particularly difficult time, we ask that you support others like Julius through the Bill Cook Foundation. Thank you.

Julius on the street.

Julius today.

Julius gives back.

What is the essence of a miracle?

If you think that love and some financial support cannot produce miracles, you have not been with me recently. You may recall that our foundation arranged for a skilled surgical team in Santiago, Chile to perform reconstructive surgeries on a horribly burned girl from South Sudan. Ten days ago I saw the remarkable, life-transforming results after months of surgery, all made possible by your support. Then, In Huanuco, Peru, I visited two Down syndrome children who had never received schooling but who are now learning. In La Paz, Bolivia, I visited a home for girls without families and saw them learning skills in a vocational classroom. And today I attended a music concert performed by formerly trafficked girls in Guatemala. These miracles have several things in common. One is courageous and hopeful children. A second is that there are loving and dedicated people on the ground working with them. The other thing they have in common is support from the Bill Cook Foundation. Thank you for your support. Bill.

More than a meal—an epic journey.

Sometimes, an image can be deceiving. This photo looks likes so many college students around the world, laughing and enjoying a meal with a retired college professor. You would be correct that they are college students—in Manila, in this case. But for some of these students, it may well have been their first meal in a restaurant. 

You see, they were raised in a slum and were part of a program the Bill Cook Foundation started at their primary school. We welcomed 72 kids, gave them backpacks, flip-flops, notebooks, pencils, a daily snack and a small allowance. They brought their hard work and dedication. We then told them that our Foundation would pay for as much education as they wanted. Thanks to your support, these happy, thriving students now attend university. 

We hope you’re inspired by this story for the New Year. Because this story and dozens like it are made possible by your support. If you've already made a donation to the Foundation this holiday season, thank you. If you haven't yet made a donation, please consider the Bill Cook Foundation.  You can send a check to Bill Cook Foundation, 3 Oak Street, Geneseo, NY 14454 or click on the Donate Now button below. A full 99% of your gift goes directly to support the education of poor children in dozens of countries across the globe. Your generosity is helping to lift children out of poverty with the power of a good education. Thank you for your continued support.

Strength is the new pretty: Rohingya refugees

“Strength is the new pretty” reads a tee shirt on a boy in Camp 8 for Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh. After meeting some refugees who will soon start English classes with the support of the Bill Cook Foundation, I came to understand the appropriateness of those words.

Two years ago, 700,000 Rohingya fled their homes and desperately crossed into Bangladesh as the army of Myanmar was carrying out what the UN calls crimes against humanity. How anyone survived the danger and humiliation of their situation is beyond my comprehension. Yet starting next week, 16 young men and women will be studying English, which will significantly expand their opportunities to find work.

Amidst the chaos of seemingly uncountable children, many naked, running around everywhere, beside the crowded homes made of scraps of plastic and a bit of bamboo, there is a stark metal building that is a place of learning and hope. I hope all of our donors and followers are as proud of this work as any we do.

When I approached an organization on the ground about having such a project, I was reminded that outside the camps are many poor Bangla kids who do not go to school.  So we agreed to support two classes in a school. When I walked to the home of one of the girls, her father, a subsistence rice farmer, hugged me and cried because we have given her daughter a chance to go to school.  

I was asked by both the Rohingya refugees and the teachers and students at the Bangla school if we could do more. How could I say no? So, I hope you will join in the work we do at the Bill Cook Foundation with a gift for these dear people in Bangladesh—any amount makes a difference. www.billcookfoundation.org/donate. I think we should make tee shirts that say, “Generosity is the new pretty.”

Support Bill Cook Foundation with your Amazon purchases

Now you can now generate a gift to the Bill Cook Foundation every time you use Amazon at no extra cost to you. Just click on this link https://smile.amazon.com/ch/47-4349289 to select the Bill Cook Foundation as the recipient of your gift. The photos are of three wonderfully curious children who will benefit from what you do. The first is from Huanuco, Peru; the second from Panama City, Panama; the third from Yangon, Myanmar.

15,000 books to Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan

Recently the Bill Cook Foundation partnered with the Good Steward Global Initiative in Houston to send 15,000 books to Nairobi, where they are being distributed to schools and orphanages in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan. Earlier we partnered with these good folks to get books to schools in and around Nairobi. The photos speak eloquently to why we do this. Please think about making your gift to the Bill Cook Foundation and making a difference in the lives of countless children.

Water and Sanitation in Uganda: Starting with the basics.

The Bill Cook Foundation is interested in plumbing—or lack thereof. We are constructing toilets in a terrible slum in Kampala, Uganda, where lots of homeless kids live. They have no place to urinate or defecate or shower. Some of the boys who live there will head to school in a day or two and experience the great ‘luxury’ of plumbing. For those not prepared or ready for school, we have sent funds to construct toilets and showers. This is going to be expensive, in part because the city’s water system does not extend into the slums. Toilets come first, and we are assisted by the National Honor Society of Irondequoit High School in suburban Rochester, NY—thanks in great part to my grandson Gabriel Quintero. They may be the only senior class in the US whose final project is toilets. They will remember with deserved pride what they have done for the rest of their lives, long after plaques and benches have been forgotten. Do you know of a person or a group that wants to help us with showers and sanitation? Visit us at www.billcookfoundation.org. We’ll make sure your fundraising efforts have the greatest impact possible.

The importance of schools in Sri Lanka.

The Bill Cook Foundation works in some dangerous places because school is often a ‘luxury’ in a culture of war. Last summer intern and volunteer Sam Glowinski and I visited Sri Lanka. Thanks to an introduction by Episcopal Bishop Emeritus William Swing of San Francisco, Sam and I met with the founder of a movement to bring peace and understanding to that too often violent country. The Sarvodaya Movement, founded by Gandhi Peace Prize winner A.T.Ariyaratne, is an interfaith peace organization. From it came Sarvodaya Shanthi Sena Sandasaya, a youth movement to bring peace to the wounded island that is Sri Lanka. Dr. Ariyaratne invited Sam and me to lunch, and we talked of a partnership between our two programs. 

Subsequently, the Bill Cook Foundation agreed to build two pre-schools, and we are now building three more.  We provide the materials, but the schools are built by villagers.  The buildings are not only schools but also meeting places for the community to discuss peace and reconciliation. Each also includes a micro lending bank.  These buildings are not only schools but important, political, religious, and economic meeting places in the community.  We are proud to partner with the Sarvodaya movement.

With the horrific bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the need for facilities like our five pre-schools is more important than ever.  We all pray in whatever tradition we follow for peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

We are also a principal sponsor of schools in Twic State in South Sudan. We installed solar panels in the remote village of Upkwa in Cameroon. Now, there is civil strife there, and the school is closed. Furthermore, there are reports of Christians (majority) killing Muslims; I fear for Upkwa because it is a majority Muslim village.

The first photos show some of the children who benefit from the availability of pre-school in Sri Lanka. The meeting of adults to discuss reconciliation at one of the pre-schools that Sam and I visited, and the construction and dedication celebration of one of the pre-schools that was funded by the Bill Cook Foundation—all made possible by your support.

The photo with the goats show the future Bill Cook Secondary School in South Sudan, and the last photo is meeting I attended in the Cameroon village of Upkwa. 

School in Sri Lanka supported by Bill Cook Foundation

Playground in Sri Lanka supported by the Foundation.

Community meeting in Sri Lanka.

Future home of Bill Cook Secondary School in South Sudan

Community meeting in the Cameroon village of Upkwa

Hope and generosity spreads far and wide.

I spent a good part of today (March 21) at the bank, sending money contributed by hundreds of Bill Cook Foundation donors to schools and students in 4 countries. I sent small amounts of support for several young men and women in Kenya attending university. I sent funds for 300 children living in a Nairobi slum to visit the Giraffe Center, where they will for the first time see those magnificent creatures and spend a day learning about them. The largest grant was to a secondary school in the Nairobi slum of Kibera, where we are finishing a project we started several months ago—the building of a science lab and a library. Thanks to you, we already have 1,000 books for the library when it is completed. I sent a small amount of money for a group of boys bound by their love of soccer in rural Uganda. We bought uniforms and equipment for them to make a team on the condition that all the boys enrolled in school (we pay their school fees). When I was in Uganda, I watched their team lose a game, but they are winning in life since all are succeeding in school. I sent funds for three young men in Addis Ababa to study languages because they attended a vocational high school and studied travel and tourism. Between them these three Ethiopian boys speak English, French, and Chinese, preparing them to be successful in the tourism business. Finally I sent funds to an organization in Sri Lanka that builds communities by building schools that also serve as places for community events. We have already built two preschools in a remote village, and this new grant will build three more. 

Of course, we work not only in Africa and South Asia but also in Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and Central and South America. 

Please help us continue and expand this critical work by going to the Donate section of the Bill Cook Foundation website. We still have lots of work to do! Thank you for your support.

A group of students at Mamma Africa in Mathare area of Nairobi.

A family of 4 orphans who live with their grandparents. 

All three women are in university while the young man is finishing high school and wants to become a chef.  We pay all their school fees plus transport.

This photo was taken at the opening of one of our first two pre-schools in rural Sri Lanka. We have just committed to building three more.

The three young Ethiopian men in their modes' room in Addis Ababa.

The Foundation paid all their expenses for high school and their language study.  When we learned about these boys, they were living on the streets of Lalibela and shining shoes in order to attend school.

A Call to St. Francis: Bill Cook interview with the Catholic Courier.

“How would I imitate Francis? If Francis were born into this world with my skill set, how would he live out his life?,” asks Bill Cook. Hear Bill’s answers from a recent interview featured in Rochester’s Catholic Courier.

From preschool to university—your support in action.

In late July I visited two young men from Laos whom we are sending to university in the capital Vientiane. One, a Buddhist monk named Sone, just graduated with a degree in English and will be an English teacher. The other, Vixai, who was a monk for a while, has one year to go before receiving a degree in business. Both come from families of subsistence rice farmers. This is one type of work the Bill Cook Foundation does. We also help pre-schoolers and special ed students and lots of kids in between. The first photo is of the two Laotian students when they were both monks. It was taken after they took me to a Buddha cave along the Mekong River. The second was taken recently in front of a sleeping Buddha in Vientiane. Your continued support of the Foundation makes it possible. 

Also, there are 10 new videos there about the Foundation, which you can access here. 

A meal of hope in Myanmar

Three years ago I traveled to Myitkyina, Myanmar, where my father was a US soldier during my infancy. It was supposed to be something of a nostalgia trip—until I met a saintly Irish nun who worked with HIV/AIDS patients and who was responsible for building a quite wonderful facility for patients. A few months later, I received an email from Sister asking if the Bill Cook Foundation would fund the education of some HIV+ teens who were unable to attend government schools. Sister Mary is not someone I could say ‘no’ to.  
The next year she took me to visit the homes of these children, most of whom had one parent who was very sick. I saw the joy on the faces of both the children and their parents when I told them that our Foundation would assure them good education. I just got back from my third visit to the children. We have added a couple, and now a few are in post-secondary school. Sister Mary has been replaced by a wonderful Burmese nun who administers our program. This year I asked if we could have a dinner for all the children. What a meal! I gave one of the students a Bill Cook Foundation hat, and he gave me a traditional Kachin (dominant ethnic group in Myitkyina) hat, which I'm sporting in the pictures. I promised all the children that we will support them as long as they are in school. I was asked to give a speech (with Sister as my translator). I told them that they were an inspiration to me and to everyone I speak to and now to my Facebook friends. Most take care of a parent and their home. All have faced severe discrimination as well as awareness of their medical condition. All have hope. The Bill Cook Foundation did not create their hope, but we do nourish it because they believe they can learn and support themselves and their parents.