Brotherly Love: Sisters Nurture Minds In Africa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Two sisters are tackling education even though they live on opposite sides of the world. They're nurturing minds in Africa. Their motto: Educate a girl, and you educate a village.
Welcome to SEGA School in Tanzania, Africa. It's a girls school started and funded by the Dolan sisters. They work side by side even though they are thousands of miles apart. Polly Dolan lives in Tanzania. Tracey Dolan is in Valley Forge, Chester County.
"It's exciting to see these girls who would never otherwise get this opportunity," said Tracey. "It's just phenomenal."
Phenomenal is how much money they've raised for the school: close to half a million dollars.
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"Starting in January, we will have an eighth grade and ninth grade," said Tracey. They are aiming for 200 girls by 2012.
We talked to Polly Dolan by phone from Tanzania. She explained that they "started with thirty girls that had dropped out of school due to poverty or had suddenly become orphans."
In some cases, it was worse. Polly said the girls wanted an education and were desperate to get one.
"I found that girls were actually exchanging sex for accommodations so that they could go to a secondary school," said Polly.
But at the SEGA School, their education is all paid for with the help of the Dolan sisters and board members like Sherley Young, who helps raise money for the school. Young said the Dolan sisters are not only educating but changing young lives.
"It was heartrending to see these kids so grateful, so hungry, for what we take for granted," said Young.
Tracey Dolan says they hope to have 200 girls at the school by 2012. They just might do it. They just received a matching grant for $400,000 to expand.
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Nurturing Minds in Africa
Reported by Dave Huddleston, CBS3
