The Q Fund Blog

Amanda Chan, a student at Marlborough High School, Los Angeles recently interviewed Chellie Kew. Her interview was published in the school newspaper, and in it Chellie atlks about how the Q Fund started, and the fund’s approach to engaging the local communities.
Chellie Kew and her organization, The Q Fund, are dedicated to the education and care of vulnerable children who have been affected by recent upheavals
such as disease and natural disaster. Incidentally, her work and passion was catapulted by a horrific accident and an inspirational vision. When her husband’s job sent him to South Africa, Kew joined him and traveled to many of the AIDS-affected villages to take photographs.

On one visit to a Namibian village, her trucked flipped over on a washed out road. Kew was on the verge of consciousness, severely dehydrated, afflicted with severalbroken ribs and wounds, but worst of all, alone without water in the middle of leopard country. She vowed not to die without first seeing her children
and promised to write a book about the AIDS orphans if she survived the night. Well, Kew did survive and survived to do much more than self-publish
her book, African Journal:  A Child’s Continent.

Today, her foundation, The Q Fund, has improved the quality of life for thousands of children in Africa and Asia. With the help of The Q Fund, the
Chimoza Community School in Zambia, that once consisted only of a one-room school and 47 children, now has new buildings and state-of-the-art
classrooms. With such improvements, the Chimoza School educates 350 students from grades 1-7.

Because the government high school has limited funds and its teachers are not paid well, Chimoza’s graduates are not being sufficiently challenged.
Thus, The Q Fund has taken upon the task to raise $3 million and build the Mucinshi Community High School in Livingston, a village on the Zambian side
of Victoria Falls. All of the schools The Q Fund have helped are partnerships between The Q Fund and locals.

“We don’t want to leave our footprint there,” Kew said. “We want to engage the community and eventually leave, because it is not our right to be more
than emotionally connected to the project.”

Since 2000, The Q Fund has funded projects in schools in Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Africa, the Congo, Zimbabwe, Mawali, and Tanzania. The Q Fund also
hopes to help the children in New Orleans, whose lives have been disrupted
and destroyed.

“People say to me, ‘Look what you’re doing for these children in Africa,’”  Kew said in a recent interview. “But what they don’t realize is what these
children are doing for me.”

Article published by Amanda Chan,
Student at Marlborough High School, Los Angeles, California