About Us
Our Story…
Tijani and Meesh met when Tijani was in middle school and Meesh was one of his teachers in Fairfax County, Virginia. Meesh led the community service club at the school, and Tijani was a very active member. As the years passed, Meesh and Tijani stayed in touch by supporting each other’s initiatives to promote education around the world. They were reunited last year at the Bailey’s Crossroads Rotary Club meeting and again shared a desire to promote opportunities for children to attend school in Africa. Tijani is from Sierra Leone and Meesh has been leading a Rotary project in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) for more than a decade. They have now joined forces to build sustainable community schools, clean water access boreholes, and community clinics for at-risk and rural communities starting in Sierra Leone and eSwatini.
eSwatini (formerly Swaziland)
KaThandi (Swazi for a loving place) is the first school of its kind being built in eSwatini specifically for children with autism and other cognitive impairments. Students who attend will receive specialized educational programs, and vocational training. The school will go into the community to advocate for the learners and their families to secure fair and safe employment opportunities. Our school will serve as a safe home for children to practice and develop independent living skills. It will also show the community how those with special needs deserve to be respected and how accommodations can improve the lives of all those involved. Our motto is “give a hand up, not a hand out.”
Our Mission is to identify and connect resources to develop sustainable learning and vocational environments for learners with disabilities.
Our Vision is to provide equitable access to education for students with disabilities. Our school and vocational center will empower those with disabilities, their families, and the community to demonstrate the tangible benefits of inclusion and belonging for all citizens.
Sierra Leone
Unity Junior Secondary School will identify resources and empower the youth to become the leaders of their community. Our work is at a grass-root level with the understanding that education plays an integral part in the advancement of a village or town. Therefore, we are approaching community building by providing access to education to students that would otherwise not have that access. Unity Junior Secondary is a community school that is built to find unnoticed talents and develop those talents to be the leaders they aspire to be.
Our Mission is to bring resources together to construct a school that is accessible to remote communities in the Eastern Parts of Sierra Leone.
Our Vision is to provide a fresh beginning for students who drop out of school for a variety of reasons. Our work is to empower teachers, parents, and the community as they serve as the core support system for all students. To realize a prosper community tomorrow, the work starts today.
Meesh Peters
Meesh Peters was raised in Fairfax, Virginia. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Recreational Therapy from Virginia Wesleyan University (VWU) and a Masters Degree in Special Education from George Mason University (GMU). She has been a special education teacher and International Baccalaureate (IBMYP) Coordinator since 2001. She is currently working at Justice High School as the On-time Graduation Resource in Fairfax, Virginia. After joining the Baileys Crossroads Rotary Club in 2008, she co-founded the MicheLo Project which focuses on the needs of learners with autism, physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and visual impairments in eSwatini. The MicheLo project has brought volunteer teams from the US to include special education teachers, physio-therapists, chiropractors, and dental health professionals annually. The program has expanded to serve communities in Malawi, Honduras, Guatemala, and Vietnam. In 2014 she was invited by the Swazi Ministry of Education to work with schools on special education initiatives where she continues to work closely with the local authorities. In 2018 she was invited to speak at the American Center in Hanoi, Vietnam to promote special education trainings on autism. In 2019, Chief Manana of the Sheselweni district in eSwatini offered Meesh and her Swazi partners more than 5 acres of land to build a school and vocational center which will be the first of its kind in the kingdom of eSwatini.
Tijani Musa
Tijani Musa was born in West Africa, Sierra Leone. He and his family moved to the United States 14 years ago when Tijani was 12. Being the first in his family to graduate from college in the U.S, Tijani is a proud alumnus of Glasgow Middle School, Justice High School, the Early Identification Program and George Mason University (GMU). He graduated from GMU in May 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Global Affairs and a focus on International Development. Tijani’s personal mission is to engage underserved communities in identifying solutions for problems affecting their communities. This focus led him to accept a position with FACETS, a nonprofit in Fairfax County where he worked for four years with low income families and individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty in the County. Tijani is currently employed with Perspecta as a Special Background Investigator working to protect U.S National Security. His current focus is continuing his education to obtain a graduate degree in public health in order to continue his work in a much larger scale. His mission post graduate school is to work in the public health arena to promote educational programs.
