About Us | History | Director Bios

For the better part of a year Kathleen Helfrey, founder and executive director of The Maalgo Project, spent her time traveling through West Africa and exploring the many different cultures she encountered. Throughout her journeys she became enthralled with the multitude of children who seemed to be everywhere, except school. She quickly learned that school could be a burden on a struggling family, there were school fees, books, paper, pencils and uniforms all of which must be purchased before the child can attend class. These items would be pricey for a family, and many children could not attend school because of them. Not only did the fees associated with school make it difficult to attend but also the children were expected to help with running the household; for example a young girl’s entire day could be devoted to fetching water for her family.

As Kathleen traveled from village to village she became increasingly amazed not only with the eagerness of the children to go to school but with their desire to succeed. Some children would walk for miles to and from school, only to come home and then do their house hold duties. While in the upper East region of Ghana, Kathleen met Father Rudolph Alumam, a professor at St. Victor’s seminary. Father Rudy brought her to his home village where together they visited the schools in the area and brought computers to the high school, books and pencils to the primary and junior high schools. He also introduced her to some of the other community leaders in the small village of Vea. She was immediately captivated by this group of organizers, who had formed a partnership to pull their community together, through education. The community called for a library, a place with electricity (which is scarce in the village), paper and pencils, a place that was open to anybody who wanted to learn. Kathleen was so taken with this community’s desire to provide for their future that she went home and began fundraising to help them build their library.

The library has been built, stocked with books, desks and chairs. However, Kathleen and Father Rudy did not stop with the library, they saw that this small library in a remote village could be so much more than that. The goal is not only to build libraries in developing communities, but to then create a hub for the entire neighborhood population. By providing programs, resources and activities to bring the community together and thus developing a whole community enrichment center. We are so proud to announce the grand opening of the library was Dec 12, 2009, we are now working towards developing and implementing programs.