Making a noteworthy difference for students

Brand-new school supplies bring smiles to children everywhere. New notebooks, colored pencils, pens and rulers hold the promise of new possibilities and new learning and, ultimately, a better life.  

School kits packed by supporters like you provide these essential supplies and more. Your support also helps to meet other educational needs of students and communities around the world.      

School kits are more than an exciting back-to-school gift. They are necessity for Burundi children who are orphans and live in families who are too poor to buy school supplies.

The fabric kit bags, which are sewn by volunteers, often double as backpacks.

Help Channel Burundi, an MCC partner, distributes the school kits to 60,000 children over three years. By intervening with these kits, there will be fewer dropouts and more educational opportunities.

Emmanuel Malou and Samuel Makur, pupils at Saint Mary’s Primary School in South Sudan, start filling up new notebooks from their MCC school kits while listening to their teacher. The contents of a single school kit could cost a parent more than a month’s salary, and even then, they’d be buying lower quality products.

Hellena Nyandur Maria, a schoolmate of Emmanuel and Samuel, says the school kits really help students. “When you don’t have one, you cannot come to school and learn. You cannot feel comfortable in the class.”

In a country with one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, MCC’s partners also encourage students to stay enrolled by offering lunch for the younger children. Older girls receive feminine hygiene products, and some learn to sew them, increasing the likelihood that girls will attend school consistently.

Last year, MCC sent 24,640 school kits to South Sudan, more than any other country.

In July 2025, MCC sent school kits to Cuba for the first time. Abigail Hernandez Machado, 5, who will start first grade this fall, and her brother, Aaron Hernandez Machado, 4, were the among the first to use one. Their mother, Claudia Machado Cruz, and the children attend Palmira Brethren in Christ Church. Church leaders divided the MCC school kits so that every child would get some items to help them in school. Cuba is experiencing an extended economic crisis that makes it difficult for parents to buy essential items, such as school supplies.

In Afghanistan, where girls are only allowed to attend school through sixth grade, MCC is supporting practical computer training for girls from fourth grade onward. These skills could make it possible for the girls to continue their education online or to get jobs. The project also narrows the learning gap with boys, who can continue their education in school or get private technology training.

The two centers offering this training can teach 80 girls per quarter. The classes, which are taught by women, are approved by the Ministry of Education, the community and the girls’ parents. Names of the girls, the partner organization, the school and its location are withheld for security reasons.

Samueal Hayelom smiles after receiving an MCC school kit in 2024, at a school near where he lives in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Many children couldn’t go to school for several years because a war in Tigray made it too dangerous. As children gradually returned to school, the kits were especially helpful because parents were out of work and prices were really high as a result of the war. 

Meserete Kristos Church Development Commission (MKCDC), a Mennonite church partner, distributed 15,000 kits to 65 schools in Tigray last year. This year, MCC is sending 15,400 more kits. Political tensions are increasing in Tigray again, after the 2022 ceasefire. Photo courtesy of MKCDC 

These preschoolers are engaged in identifying vegetables at the Rights for Children's Lives Center, whose primary mission is serving children with special needs in Zaporizhzhia. The center continues to serve students despite the Russian military's periodic bombardment in the city.

Ukraine does not have a system for providing group-based public services for rehabilitation and social assistance to children under the age of 6. Public schools struggle to deliver special education. But at the center, children with disabilities have free access to rehabilitation, primary school preparation, affordable primary and high school education and vocational education.

Rights for Children's Lives Center also is educating some siblings of their students and other displaced children since most public schools in Zaporizhzhia can only operate online due to the constant shelling of the city.  Even children without special needs are likely to be delayed academically, developmentally, socially or psychologically because they haven’t been able to go to school in person since 2020 due to COVID-19 and the war.

Imagine going to school and listening to teachers use a language you don’t know well. Raj Hasda, front, has grown up speaking Mahali, the language of his Indigenous culture in Bangladesh. In public school, however, all the children are expected to learn in Bangla. 

So every morning, Raj and his friends, including Shimul Marandy, attend public primary school. In the afternoon Raj goes to a multilingual education program where he continues to develop literacy in his mother language and build skills for attending primary school in the national language.

MCC supports 27 multilingual programs in Bangladesh for children from four Indigenous groups. Santal children benefit from established two-year preschools where teachers introduce the children to school activities in their own language the first year and transition to Bangla the second year.

As a result, more Indigenous children are succeeding and continuing their education while holding onto their own culture and dignity.     MCC photo/James Kisku

Caption for top photo:  At the Eritrean Refugee School in Egypt, the children are well on their way to being trilingual, learning curriculum in Arabic, Tigrinya and English. The school for refugees from Eritrea offers classes from junior kindergarten to grade eight. Like so many refugee schools in Cairo, this school is a testament to the tremendous collective will and energy found in refugee communities to provide education for their children. To support these efforts, MCC partner St. Andrews Refugee Services (StARS) works alongside community-based schools like the Eritrean Refugee School to provide teacher training and supportive learning environments for children.   MCC photo/Roger Anis