Bieber's Pencils of Promise is Kicking Butt - Let's Bring it Home!

You may remember that crazy adorable video of Justin Bieber and his partner in the incredible Pencils of Promise initiative via Schoools4All, the very handsome and personable Adam Braun.

I got to ask Adam a few questions about his work with The Biebs, and he was kind enough to delve a little deeper in how the two became involved with this incredible program:

Me: You mentioned wanting to do something like this together for years, so why now? What moved you guys to action, and how did the two of you start working on it?

AB: Justin and I have been friends for years, and we've always talked about doing something big together that enabled education for kids around the world. We knew that the gamechanger would be if he could visit a school, but we had to wait until after his movie was released so that we could figure out scheduling. It took time for our team to fully build out the platform as we'd envisioned it, for us to develop the expertise on the ground to build truly sustainable schools, and for Justin to get a break from his world tour. But now that it's all come together, we're incredibly proud of what Schools4All has become.

I'd be proud too Adam, it's pretty crazy impressive. I asked him about how he got Justin to join up - apparently the two had been wanting to do something to counteract the trouble in our schools for quite some time - I loved what he had to say...

AB: Coming up with Schools4All was really a collaborative process between the two of us. We were roommates while on a trip to Africa last September and one morning in the room we just started tossing around ideas about how we could work together to raise money to build new PoP schools. By the time we went down to breakfast we had the entire idea concepted, and I reminded him that it'd require him to visit a school in person. I asked him, "Are you sure you'd be willing to do that?" Without hesitation he looked at me and said, "For Pencils of Promise? 100%." From then on I just ran full steam at making this a reality, and as usual we've had a blast together.

Adam told me that when they first started working on this project, there were 75 million children worldwide without ACCESS to education. That number was staggering to both Justin and himself, and The Biebs knew he was in a unique position to reach out and make change. Now, it's the results of their efforts that are staggering.

In just 2.5 years PoP has broken ground on nearly 40 schools in the developing world, created a movement of over 250,000 individuals and delivered more than 1 million student educational hours in our classrooms. Our goal is to break ground on 100 schools by the end of 2012, and through campaigns like Schools4All we're excited to watch that become a reality.

The ultimate goal of PoP is to grow the movement towards quality education for every child on the planet. We do so by building schools on the ground and hopefully putting out a model for others to replicate, and also by training a new generation of young leaders to take action at home and abroad. We talk a lot about how one person can make a change but only together can we change the world.

Well, Pencils of Promise, their little fundraiser that could has now raised over $200,000.00 for Schools 4 All, and we want to make sure that we help them hit ohhhhh...what do you think, like a quarter million by midnight? I think we BlogHers have the social media wherewithall to make that happen, don't you?

Source: BlogHer