Our Vision
St Mary’s Academy Ortese will be a nurturing, safe and professional environment that supports the educational success and social, emotional, and physical development of all students. Classes will be tailored to meet the needs of the students, engaging, and standards-based, with a focus on the learner. It is our hope to get to the point where all our school staff will be highly qualified and caring instructors who are attentive to the educational, cultural and physical needs of our students and the Ortese village community. Parents will be involved, positive, supporting members of the school community. Students will be respectful, self-disciplined, productive citizens who think critically, make informed decisions and act ethically.
Our Mission
The purpose of St. Mary’s Academy is to educate, empower, and enable our students to acquire an education and enter the labor market to become caring, contributing citizens that will help break the circle of poverty in their community. St. Mary’s Academy is committed to focusing on individual academic success and to creating a community of respect and responsibility. All children of the village are welcome regardless of the individual or family’s
faith, creed, or political affiliation. Our mission is to provide a safe environment where everyone is valued and respected. Students are prepared to meet current and future challenges and develop social awareness, civic responsibility, and personal growth.
Our Core Values
Without regard to caste, race, religion, sex, or place of birth, we will always work tirelessly for providing opportunities for students from all backgrounds to compete successfully with the affluent and be treated equally with others.
Our kindergarten provides a safe, developmentally appropriate, nurturing environment that promotes social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth, as well as a positive self-image and love of learning.
Our vision is a community where all children feel loved, respected, and encouraged to develop to their fullest potential.
Who we are? Read Our Story
Charity is an extensive platform, where anyone from any part of the world can donate the little part of the fortune to enhance living standard and education system as well as fulfill all other basic needs of deprived African children.
In 2022, “Give to Educate the Poor” became a nonprofit organization. The goal was for the Saji’s family together with a handful of their friends to raise funds to help promote a school project started for the purpose of providing education for the children in Ortese village in Buruku Local Government Area of Benue State- Nigeria. An education with Christ at the center, that will empower the children, prepare, and challenge them in a positive way to help break the cycle of poverty that has, for long, taken hold of the entire population.
To achieve this goal, we decided to join hands with an initiative that was already on the ground, a school project that was started by one of our members because there was no school in Ortese village where children could acquire a formal education. We also realized that supporting such an initiative will be good for us not just in terms of controlling the content and quality of what is being taught but also a good opportunity to bring the village kids closer to God in the Christian faith.
In 2021, Give to Educate the poor, which was by then just an idea, started supporting Saint Mary’s Academy through a sponsorship initiative to bring more children to school. The response from both children and parents was impressive with a lot of children seeking enrolment in the school. However, with so much limited resources, we could not take in much of the children. With a heightened level of poverty in the village, it is difficult to get any form of assistance from the families. We do, however, believe that education is the only way forward to break that cycle of poverty. Today, a lot has been done, given where we started.
1. When we started supporting in 2021, we had only 200 kids in school. Today, thanks to the sponsorship initiative, we have 361 kids in school.
2. Thanks to our initiative, teachers can now receive their pay on a regular basis and are more motivated.
What we do? See Our Works
Creative Events
We hope to organize fundraisers by holding activities like t-shirt camping, cultural programs, and marathons. When several modest donors give to a cause, a sizable quantity is amassed and used to fund children’s education.
Sponsorships
We provide child sponsorship for children seeking enrollment at Saint Mary’s Academy, Ortese. You can sponsor multiple children or a specific child. With the help of our sponsors, we increased enrollment from kindergarten to the secondary level during the 2021/2022 academic year. Our hope is to mobilize resources that will better support the health and education of the children of Ortese village.
Policy and Advocacy
By starting school feeding program and infrastructural support, we seek to ensure that children’s fundamental rights to education are upheld and their concerns are given top consideration.
Child protection
Every child deserves a childhood free from exploitation. Early education, especially for girls, releases them from the obstacles of hard labor. In addition, we provide medical aid to those in need thanks to large and little donations from you.
