Ghana schoolboy launches $13 million drive for
Somali kids ... cedis or about $13 million for his cause by walking office to office
collecting donations in
Ghana.
Andrew Adansi-Bonnah is 11 and during his eight-week school holiday, he wants to raise 20 million Ghanaian cedis or about $13 million for his cause by walking office to office collecting donations in Ghana.
As international aid agencies scramble for donations for East Africa's famine victims, one multi-million-dollar fundraising drive has come from an unexpected source: a West African schoolboy.
Andrew Adansi-Bonnah is 11. And during his eight-week school holiday, he wants to raise 20 million Ghanaian cedis — or about $13 million — for his cause by walking office to office collecting donations in Ghana's capital, Accra.
Since starting the drive Aug. 1, he has collected about $6,500 in pledges for the fund he started after consulting with UNICEF and the U.N.'s World Food Program.
His father, schoolteacher Samuel Adansi-Bonnah, donated his entire July salary of about $500.
Andrew said he was inspired by images of skeletal babies and stick-thin children he saw on television, which led him to name his campaign Save Somali Children from Hunger.
"There are hungry people in Ghana but our situation is not as desperate as the people of Somalia," said the skinny, soft-spoken boy.
The United Nations estimates more than 12 million people across East Africa need food aid because of a long-running drought that has sent more than 100,000 people fleeing to refugee camps. Somalia has been hit the hardest. U.S. officials estimate the famine has killed 29,000 children in the past three months.
The U.N. has yet to raise half of the $2.4 billion it has requested from donor countries. The U.N. says the famine is expected to spread to all regions of southern Somalia in the next four to six weeks unless more aid can be delivered.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44122412/...nches-million-drive-somali-kids/#.XLs1CnduJjo
