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PLEASANT GROVE — A man from Utah County is on a mission to help educate impoverished kids in West Africa — and he's doing so by transforming his own Internet business.
"The kids in the orphanage have absolutely nothing," said Mitch Weight, the founder of a company that aims to change that for more than 1,000 kids in Liberia.
In January, Weight and his wife adopted two boys from Liberia; and Friday, he's headed back armed with notebooks, pens, toys and a business plan to send children to school.
The Weights and their five children were thrilled to welcome 13-year-old Surprise and 10-year-old Thomas into the family. But the boys' homeland quickly became an inspiration for their father.
"Without an education," Weight said, "you are consigned to crime, prostitution or just working in the streets trying to find something to sell."
When they picked up the boys, Weight was stunned by what he saw. The kids inside the orphanage where his sons lived were learning to read and write. But outside, it was a different story.
"Outside of the environment of education, it's horrific," Weight said.
He said children of every age are working in the street markets, roaming in gangs, and young girls work as prostitutes for food and money.
"Sixty percent of the school-age girls that go to school get involved in that just to pay their school fees," Weight said.
If you're a boy, he said, there's a 50 percent chance that you'll end up a criminal.
Liberia has been ravaged by more than a decade of civil war, and more than 80 percent of the people live in poverty. Crime is rampant, and education is the key to a better life.
"We walked through the slums. We walked through these war-torn areas," Weight said. "All of the cement buildings have bullet holes all over the place."
But when he read with kids in the orphanage, he discovered how much they loved school. He said the children know that if they learn to read and write, they have a future off the streets. Once he learned that, Weight started to see a better future for them.
"You see what kind of opportunities could happen if we contributed a little bit," he said.
So, Weight decided to leverage his business to send Liberian kids to school. To do so, he retooled his Internet marketing business, and named it Sahbu.
Sahbu helps students in America find schools that meet their needs. The American schools pay Sahbu when it finds students for them, and Sahbu uses some of that money to send kids in Liberia to school.
Weight says it costs about $160 to send a child in Liberia to school for a year. "In the first three days," he said, "we had 22,000 people come to our Facebook page. Word is getting out."
On this return trip, Weight will hand out 50 scholarships. Sahbu has already sponsored more than 100 kids, and the goal is to sponsor 1,000 by the end of the year.
Sahbu, which means "bald man" in Liberia, is a term of affection that his kids have used with him. He liked it and decided to go with it, and the boys think it's great.
Meanwhile, Surprise and Thomas say they love going to school in Pleasant Grove.
Surprise said it's important "to learn and be a better person." Back in Liberia, he studied at the orphanage. Now he gets to ride a bus to a real high school with all of the other kids.
When we asked Thomas what he thinks of his American school, he said, "It's awesome."
Sahbu is working with Lifting Liberia, a Salt Lake organization which is building schools and donating scholarships.
