King Baudouin Foundation United States

Promo Jeune Basket (PJB) is a basketball academy of excellence in Congo (DRC), focused on using sport to advance gravely lacking education opportunities and life skills to Congolese youth.  More than a thousand children benefit from the program.  

Our project is to give top PJB players, who excel both in their studies and on the court, the opportunity to attend a basketball camp held in the US by our partner Global Squad, a program that organizes training camps around the globe. Every year they invite select international student/athletes to train in the US where they get a chance to play in front of recruiting coaches.

We hope to achieve three goals in this process: 1) capture the attention of high school coaches in the US to unlock high school scholarship opportunities, 2) help raise awareness and resources for PJB's principal mission in the Congo and 3) promote cultural exchange and the development of basketball skills.

In 2018 Cesar Tchilombo and Jeannot Basima were the first PJB players in our program: participation to the Global Squad camp landed them near complete scholarships to boarding schools here in the USA. Both are currently students and basketball players at The John Carroll School in Maryland. We invite you to follow their journey from Goma, Congo to the USA through a short documentary produced for Canal Plus by Youcef Ouldyassia, now working as NBA Academy Africa's Head of Contents, at the following link:

We are working 100% as unpaid volunteers in this fund raising effort. Donations are 100% tax deductible.
Funds raised will be split as follows:
- 75% will go to support PJB in Congo: scholarships to local schools, as well as support of the basketball coach and life skills programs;
-25% will be used to cover the costs of the US part of the program: bring players to the US basketball summer camps and incidentals after they join schools (travel, partial tuitions, insurance, books, ...)
The use of our funds is audited and the report is available to donors upon request.

We also welcome sponsorship opportunities for material in Congo or endorsement to create basketball events in the US to reach interested communities and raise funds.

SOME KEY FIGURES:

PJB is run by founder Dario Merlo-Kasuku, Manager Sakinah Musafiri, Head Coach Kipere Mulolwa and a dozen assistant coaches. Thousands of young girls and boys, including physically challenged children, have benefited from the program. They play on 6 courts around the city of Goma, built over the past 13 years following a volcanic eruption that ravaged the city and surrounding areas. Hundreds of local scholarships are given each year to allow children access to basic education.

Besides Cesar and Jeannot who came to the US thanks to the partnership with Global Squad and schools' scholarships, other PJB children play and study in the US through various opportunities: Jemima, Davina and Amanda in Maine, Patrick in Texas, Lydie in Pennsylvania and a few others.

Scholarships in Goma consists of annual grants of $150 per child, which is the cost of attending public school
(not free in DRC Congo).

Annual living and incidental expenses for each PJB player attending a US boarding school amounts to $15,000; this includes travel, schoolbooks, food, insurance coverage, mobile phone, laptop, clothing.

A new basketball court costs $25,000 to build in Goma. The six courts already built by PJB in Goma are giving  hope every day to more than a thousand children and their families at any time.


Contact us with any question, and THANK YOU FOR SHARING!

On the court in Goma:



At school in Goma:

Head Coach Kipere at work:

John Alexander and assistant Nick of Global Squad coaching at a camp in Goma in 2019:




Manager Sakinah Musafiri on lockdown in April 2020:


From left to right: Cesar, Jemima, Lydie and Jeannot in the US (June 2020):

A well-known African proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child”.

The Ethiopian School Readiness Initiative (ESRI) * was founded in 2007 in New York by a group of medical, education and other philanthropic individuals to provide disadvantaged preschool children in Ethiopia with the tools to succeed in school and enable them to fulfill their natural potential and lift themselves from a future of perpetual poverty. 

ESRI (www.ethiopianschoolready.org)  and The School Readiness Initiative (SRI) (our licensed NGO affiliate in Ethiopia) under the leadership of Executive Director, Dr. Menelik Desta has developed a free access, comprehensive preschool program in partnership with the Regional Bureaus of Education in Ethiopia.  The preschools program began in Addis Ababa and has expanded into 5 Regions throughout the Country. The program has proven to be very successful due to the enthusiasm, energy, intelligence and good will of all stakeholders (Ethiopian children, teachers, parents, education officials as well as our generous US donors and ESRI members).
Since ESRI’s inception more than 65,000 disadvantaged preschool children (ages 3 to 6) have been educated in the program. Teachers report that over 60% can read by the time they enter the first grade. They continue to succeed in school and many go on to graduate High School.  The ESRI/SRI program has also created a successful branch empowering the mothers of the children to open small businesses and generate income.



When the Covid 19 pandemic reached Ethiopia in March 2020, all schools in Ethiopia including SRI pre-schools closed. The Government is planning to reopen the school system in October 2020. ESRI/SRI will have 7500 preschool children throughout the countryside awaiting reopening this October.

In order to maximize the health and safety of the children and teachers, we plan to introduce safety measures to help prevent viral spread during school. The Ethiopian Regional Bureaus of Education are unable to provide masks, sanitizer or soap for the children or the teachers and the families cannot afford to provide their own. Some schools do not even have clean water for drinking and washing. The estimated cost for personal protective equipment (PPE) including sanitizer, soap and masks for our 7500 preschool children and 150 teachers for the school year is $53, 000 US or $7.66 US per person for the year. 

Given these circumstances, we are appealing to your generosity and the generosity of the society at large to raise the funds to allow the ESRI children to return to school safely. We know that we are not alone in believing that education and health are the absolute prerequisites for impoverished and disadvantaged individuals and countries to emerge from poverty.
We appeal to your sense of justice, compassion and generosity to help us raise $53,000 which will allow the disadvantaged Ethiopian preschoolers to return to school in October 2020 in a safe way and continue their journey toward a better and safer future.

·         Donations to ESRI/SRI are made via KBFUS - Friends of SRI –Ethiopia fund at KBFUS, a 501(c)(3) organization.

https://www.ethiopianschoolready.org
https://kbfus.org/about-us/legal-financial-information/