We know you’re dreaming of getting your paws on a pair of Purpose tickets (say that 10 times fast!), but now there’s even more of an incentive. What do you mean?, you say? Well, just before his sold-out show at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York, Justin Bieber was named the first-ever global ambassador for Pencils of Promise, and $1 from each ticket sold will go toward providing access to education for students in the developing word.
The funds will benefit the Lower Manya Krobo and Asuogyaman districts in East Ghana, where education standards are nowhere near satisfactory. "In the Lower Manya Krobo district, 33% of existing classrooms are in need of major repairs and many students who attend school have class outdoors under mango trees," Natalie Ebel, director of marketing for Pencils of Promise, tells Teen Vogue. "In the Asuogyaman district, 42% of primary students are not able to pass the national English language exams required to progress to secondary school. As a result of Justin's continued support and through his Purpose Tour funding, PoP has already started building seven new schools in the Eastern Region of Ghana, with six more on the way, which will serve over 1,500 new students in 2016 alone."
This isn’t Biebs' first brush with philanthropy: "Justin has been a member of the PoP family since the early days. Around the time that he was just a 13-year-old kid with a guitar on YouTube, he met our founder, Adam Braun (his older brother Scooter is Justin’s manager), who told him about the organization he had recently started," Natalie says. "Since then, Justin’s been a dedicated supporter, truly believing in our mission to provide education for all. Over the years, he’s donated millions of dollars to this organization, which funded dozens of schools and provided access to quality education for thousands of students." He previously donated $1 of all ticket sales from his “My World” and “Believe” tours to the organization, and visited one of the schools he funded in Guatemala.
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