Will you help me (1) provide girls in Africa with life-changing STEM education, and (2) get some PhD stuff published this year?

You might know that I work with a small charity dedicated to girls’ education. And this year we’re partnering with Riley Orton Foundation to build out their incredible STEM learning centre for girls in low-resource rural Kenya.

ROF’s programs expose girls to knowledge, resources and opportunities to pursue studies and empowered careers in science, technology, leadership and sustainable agriculture.

This year, help me raise funds to resource ROF’s work.

What I’m going to do

I’m in a position of great privilege, extending my own education to include a PhD in educational sociology. This year I’m aiming to get some academic publications out — journal articles, magazine spots, maybe a book chapter or conference paper. I want to put some of my work out into the world.

I want to set myself a writing challenge, but one that doesn’t benefit just me. My work is pretty specialist. Riley Orton’s is not.

What you can do

For each piece I get into an academic publication in 2025 (this newsletter doesn’t count), you can pledge to donate an amount towards Sunflower’s grants program. It’s kind of like the MS Readathon, except I have to write, not read. For example, you might pledge:

What the Riley Orton Foundation does

Here’s a snapshot of ROF’s major initiatives (more details and photos on their website):

• partnering with schools across Kisumu to resource and extend their STEM teaching capacity

• hosting educational camps for STEM skills, leadership and gender equality

• scholarship programs to support girls to continue education beyond primary school (girls often drop out at this point to be married off or work)

• distributing quality school uniforms, menstrual pads and other school materials to kids from impoverished backgrounds

• providing bikes to girls who have no other way to get safely to school

• building school infrastructure including latrines and outdoor learning spaces

Even if you couldn’t care less about my publication jaunt, I’d be so grateful for your help in funding this important work.

How we help

I’m raising funds through the Sunflower Foundation, an Australia-based charity that works with grassroots organisations helping girls get to school in all sorts of ways. We partner with registered not-for-profit organisations that operate on tiny, tiny budgets, mostly in African countries.

Every little bit makes an impact. The founders of Sunflower (the amazing Kim and Paul Power) used the image of seeds of hope — and there are so many ways to plant them.

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FAQ

How do I donate?

First, choose the amount you’d like to pledge per article — say, $20. Then, you can make a donation for that initial amount via PayPal, or a direct deposit to Sunflower’s bank account:

Account Name: Sunflower Foundation
Bank: ANZ
BSB: 013 412
Account No.: 481 363 565

You’ll receive a tax invoice which you can use towards your tax deductions. If you provide your email address with the donation, I’ll reach out to you at the end of 2025 to let you know how many articles I clocked in the end, and to ask if you’d still be able to donate that same amount for each article (e.g., 5 articles x $20). You don’t have to obviously! I’ll just ask once.

Can I just donate a set amount (not tied to your publication rate)?

Yes, of course! The publication rate thing is mostly about challenging myself to engage in The Discourse. This PhD is a project in knowledge expansion, and communicating about that is a really important skill.

But when it comes to how you want to support girls’ education through Sunflower and our community partners, I’ll take any kind of support you’re willing to give.

How many articles do you actually expect to publish?

I mean… I’m not sure? PhD candidates typically publish something like 1-3 papers a year. I’m hoping for 3-4. Some candidates have “dizzying publication rates”… at rough count, Leon Furze has managed to clock 16 papers since he kicked off his doctorate at Deakin two years ago. I don’t think that’s likely!

How much have you published so far?

Here’s my ORCID. This is a digital record of my academic publications — it’s automated, so it pulls in new publications based on their DOIs, athough it is possible to add things manually as well if they’re not indexed.

What kinds of publication count for this challenge?

The main thing is that they are published by someone else with academic cred, not by me. So, for example, articles in academic journals, book chapters, conference papers or posters, magazine articles are the main ones. I’ll also include any other research outputs that have DOIs associated with them, provided they were published by not-me.

I’m ruling out self-published essays and articles, like this blog post, but I will include guest posts on the websites of other scholars. Same deal for podcasts: if I’m someone else’s guest, and it’s an academic production, it’s in. If it’s me gushing about Season 1 of Severance, it’s not (even if I am talking to Professor Inger Mewburn aka the Thesis Whisperer, squee!)

You seem nice, but how do I know this is legit?

The Sunflower Foundation (Australia) Inc. is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and holds an ABN. We produce an annual report and financial statement. You can find out more about the projects we’ve funded in previous years at our website — there are some lovely photos of the events and the students, too!