BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
METUCHEN – Jennifer Fong, the co-founder of Learning is an Art with her husband, John, has teamed up with Physicians for Peace to raise $100,000 for the children of Eritrea.
Learning is an Art, which is a home party plan company that sells highly academic toys and games, will donate all of its profits to the Physicians for Peace Eritrea initiative, with the goal of raising $100,000 in 30 days in the month of April.
“Everyone that gets involved in Learning is an Art, either through selling, hosting home parties, or buying educational toys and games, is making a difference to people in Africa,” said Fong.
Eritrea is a country in northeast Africa bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south and Djibouti in the southeast. The country has a population of 5 million people, and very few physicians.
Physicians for Peace is an international humanitarian nonprofit medical education organization dedicated to building peace and international friendships in developing nations with unmet medical needs and scarce resources through medical education and training, clinical care, and donated medical supplies. The organization has partnered with The George Washington University Medical Center and the Government of Eritrea.
“The money raised will go into building a medical residency program to train local pediatricians and other desperately needed medical specialists in order to help the children of this struggling African country to get the health care they deserve,” said Fong.
The partnership will provide real-time mission-based medical training, a pipeline of donated medical equipment and supplies and an innovative project to develop and implement a post-graduate medical education curriculum. By developing residency programs in pediatrics and surgery, and eventually other specialties, using U.S.-trained clinicians as instructors and visiting faculty, this unique initiative will create an urgently needed cadre of Eritrean specialists.
“These people have no anesthesiologists, gynecologists, no cardiologist or any specialized doctors,” she said. “They only have four pediatricians, four obstetricians and four surgeons.”
Learning is an Art currently has 14 consultants and was started in direct response to the crisis in Darfur. The Fongs are deeply concerned about the suffering of the people in this region of the world and have invested their entire life savings into this company to help people. As educators, they found a way to use their expertise to make a difference.
“We donate 100 percent of our corporate profits to top-rated charities working in Africa,” said Fong. “The average life expectancy in Eritrea is 50 years old. We need people to know about this and we are committed to making this happen.”
Fong has sent out over 5,000 posters among her consultants to help spread the word.
“The money will do a lot for the country,” she said.
For more information contact Jennifer Fong at (732) 632-9766 or e-mail her at [email protected] or visit www.LearningisanArt.com.