Eddo Kim is the founder and executive director of The Supply Education Group, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to “empower and transform communities through education.” Unsatisfied with his Bachelor of Arts Degree in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and Master of Arts in Education Policy at Columbia University, Kim is currently working on a Master of Education in International Education Policy at Harvard University.
Having been a student at three separate Ivy League universities, Kim has always viewed education as an opportunity to give, serve, and help solve global problems. During his travels through several impoverished countries, he realized how big of an impact that education had on communities.
The general Korean attitude toward education—that the primary need for education is to obtain financial success—seems to be a perspective that focuses on the hardships of the “immigrant-experience.” In contrast, children in developing countries see education as necessary to serving remedies against local problems.
“Their understanding of education as a call to action made it easy for me to know that education truly is the means of breaking the chains of global poverty,” said Kim. “That’s how I was inspired to start The Supply—when I started to see that education could truly change an impoverished community from a “demand” community into a “supply” community.”
In the summer of 2010, Kim began to do more fieldwork research in Costa Rica, Kenya, and Tanzania. He collected a staff of three and five college interns to bring more awareness to the organization. The Supply also gained much publicity when Youtube internet star KevJumba visited their school in Lenana, hosted a birthday campaign, and became a spokesperson for the organization.
Kim takes six trips to Kenya annually and maintains a strong relationship with the field directors. While in Kenya, The Supply holds community meetings, does strategic planning, and conducts research-based strategy work out in the field. They are currently working to build a secondary school in Lenana, a slum village 10 kilometers west of Nairobi, Kenya.
“Personally, I really want to see American youth [truly] understanding this idea that education is a call to action and to really start to change the way they see their education – that education is not simply a gateway to more fame and money, but really it is the greatest tool we have to solve our local problems along with larger international ones.”
The youth can get involved by simply starting school supply drives, starting a high school chapter, or contributing to fundraisers. Support The Supply by visiting their website, thesupply.org, and their Youtube channel, thesupplyedu.
Hi, interesting article! If I were you, I would focus most on organization. Your story is pretty good (try to shorten it a little, cut the excess detail) but the presentation needs to be less intimidating. For example, more paragraphs= more space. More space= less intimidating, more “entertaining”. This attracts readers. Also, a flashy/descriptive pic always helps to catch readers’ attentions. Good work!