Adam Braun is an entrepreneur who the founded the non-profit organization Pencils of Promise. This organization builds schools and provides free education for children in developing countries Who can’t afford to go to school.
At the age of 25, he joined the Semester at Sea program, where the studies were done on a cruise ship while visiting certain countries. While visiting these countries, he wanted to ask a specific question from one child from each country.
The Question was “If you can have anything in the world, what would you want most?”.
He was expecting answers like big TVs, Phones and fast cars. So, he started asking the question from the children he met in each country.
- A Hawaiian girl told that she wanted to Dance.
- A girl from Beijing said she would like a Books.
- A Vietnamian girl wanted her mother to get out of sickness and be healthy.
- A Hong Kong boy wanted to do Magic.
Finally, he asked an Indian boy. The boy said he wanted a Pencil. Since he was surprised by the answer, he asked the question again.
However, the boy persisted with his answer of Pencil. He quickly took a pencil from his bag and gave it to the child. The boys face was filled with surprise and joy. Apparently, the boy has not been to school. But he has seen other school children using the pencils to write. The boy wanted to write and learn like them.
Adam was surprised by how a small thing like a pencil could create such joy in a child. He realized this could lead to the education of poor children in developing countries. He decided to give kids pens and pencils when traveling around the world.
Then Adam met a person called Joel in a trip to Gautamala. Joel’s dream was to educate his kids and grand kids to give a better life to them. He kept traveling through countries in that region and gave pencils to the children he met.
He had the opportunity to talk to parents of children, who got pencils from him. Adam asked the same question from the parents. Surprisingly, their answer was to get education for their children.
These events forced him to think more about the problems these children face in developing countries, and how lack of education is wasting their lives.
Then, he joined a consulting firm called Bain & Company. Even though it was a well paid job he didn’t like it and kept thinking about the happiness he got from seeing the smiles on kids faces after getting pencils.
The name Pencils of Promise came to his mind. Since then, all he wanted to do was plan and work towards generating money to build school for children in need. He registered an official non profit organization called Pencils of Promise. Then he organized an event in a hotel for people to come and enjoy, while generating money for his organization.
He promoted the event through social media and asked his friends to do the same. The party was a blast and he generated $8000 for his organization. His friends joined his cause and they organized more events to generate money. People liked his cause and continued to offer donations.
Finally, they had enough donations to build a school. With the support of government of Laos, they created the first Pencils of Promise school in Laos. Adam left the job to pursue his dream of building schools for these children. More people contributed and joined the organization.
They started building more and more schools in 3 countries to educate the poor children.
Adam braun’s small act of giving pencils to children has led to the creation of one of the most Influential non-profit organizations for education.
He has won several awards for changing the world With his visionary leadership.
At the time of creating this video, Pencils of Promise has build 531 schools and helped educate over 100,000 students in Ghana, Guatemala and Laos.
Anyone can contribute to this cause by donating through their website to pay a teacher, build a school or handle expenses of a student.
LESSON
Adam Braun was able to change the lives of thousands of poor children In developing countries. It all started with a small act of giving a pencil to a child in India And using simple methods to generate money for his cause.
In life, when we want to do something big, we think we need lots of money, support and people to achieve what we want. But the reality is that more often than not, we can make a huge change in someone else’s lives by using small acts and the things we already have.
So, start doing small things that could benefit others and make an enormous impact on their lives. Subscribe to our channel for more inspirational stories.
