It's about school desks and scholarships for girls [View all]

[AverageOldGuy]

I'm certain that a lot of folks here watch Lawrence O'Donnell and no doubt you have heard him talking about his charity -- administered through UNICEF -- "KIND -- Kids In Need of Desks." The idea is that kids in Malawi don't have desks in schools -- they sit on the floor. This is especially difficult for girls who typically wear skirts and, well, you know the rest.

So Lawrence asks his viewers to donate to KIND so desks can be manufactured in Malawi then given to schools. One desk seats two kids.

On tonight's show Lawrence showed video of a shipment of desks being delivered, unloaded by the kids, and set up in their classroom. The desks came wrapped in plastic -- the kids saved the plastic wrapping material and took home to be use for whatever -- we would have tossed the plastic into a landfill.

If you are not aware of KIND, check it out.
https://www.unicefusa.org/what-unicef-does/childrens-education/kids-need-desks-kind

Five years ago we sat down our grandsons who were 13 and 10 at the time, showed them a Lawrence video, then told them that from now on at Christmas, we were now donating, in their names, two desks a year ($316) and one 4-year high school scholarship for a girl ($1,060; high school is not free so most girls drop out before high school). They seemed to understand the idea but were "Well, okay, Grandpa, that's good" about it.

Tonight they were visiting us when I was watching Lawrence and they watched the video of desks arriving, unloading, set up. Now at 18 and 15 their reactions were entirely different -- "Grandpa, can't we give more desks? Just don't give us any Christmas presents, we don't need anything. " So we are donating four desks this year, six next year and two scholarships a year.

And I thought the only things they were interested in is video games and girls.