Fati Sidibe is a bright senior attending public school and a member of our Justice in Education program. Fati, and the other teens we trained, helped us dispel the myth that kids don’t care and can’t do anything about the problems they face.

After learning from us how to make a good case for her school, Fati represented her peers as the first and only teenager ever to testify in front of the PA Basic Education Funding Commission.

Here is part of her eloquent testimony: 

“My classmates and I usually leave the house before light just so we can make the train on time, then we often move our seats because we are exposed to second hand smoke, and then we go down the steps and pass piles of trash and homeless people, and finally we make it to class just on time.

“We are required to fully engage and be present while hoping that our environment outside not show up in our work. We are required to invest so much time with little effort given back to us with support for our success. We don’t even have a library or a cafeteria – two minimum things that kids need to get through the day.”

To Fati, her egregiously underfunded school is not an abstract problem that someone else “might” fix. It is real and immediate, and Children First is giving her the tools and support she needs to bring about lasting change. 

Your support of Children First empowers citizens like Fati to demand change. Together we produce real returns for children like great early learning options, better schools, expanded health care and rigorous protections when they are harmed or make bad decisions. 

Your donation will give us the resources we need so that thousands of others we engage with can increase their influence and show policymakers that they must meet the urgent needs of children, now.

Thank you in advance for your generous support and for your consideration this year. You can donate online at www.childrenfirstpa.org/donate. Thank you for your support.

– Outgoing Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney