Bricks for Minds Foundation
From a suitcase of pencils to a school of our own. Supplies today, schools tomorrow.
Hands-on, from a backpack to a school.
Small gifts become school supplies I buy and deliver myself; larger gifts support vulnerable children and help us build a school.
Three ways we work
Supply
Delivering school supplies by hand, pens, pencils, books and the basics, straight to the children who need them.
Support
Standing behind orphanages and schools with practical, ongoing financial help that reaches children directly.
School
Helping build one of our own in Rwanda, a lasting model to repeat elsewhere in Africa.
Our current focus: MOCO
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Direct, ongoing support for 262 vulnerable children at MOCO.
What your support can help fund
Simple, visible and accountable, from the need identified, to the support raised, to the progress delivered on the ground.
Sponsors one child at MOCO.
A full supply run, hand-delivered to a school in Africa, wherever work travel takes us.
Supports one teacher for a year.
Donate any amount toward a school of our own, a model to repeat across the continent. →
Not ready to give? Follow a supply run from Prague to a classroom.
Help us build the next brick
Whether you donate, sponsor a project, introduce a partner or support through your company, every contribution helps create better learning opportunities for children.
Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
Bricks for Minds Foundation exists to support children in Africa by delivering school supplies, backing orphanages and schools, and funding practical, community-based projects.
Education creates long-term impact
It is one of the few investments that compounds across a lifetime, and across a community.
- Confidence
- Safety
- Employability
- Dignity
- Community resilience
- Leadership
- Future opportunity
- Access
Grounded in real exposure
My professional work in commercial real estate, covering complex and emerging markets, has taken me across 20 countries in Africa so far, delivering projects for corporate clients. Over those years I started building real relationships, spending time in communities and seeing the inequality first-hand, until I wanted to do more than just work here.
Africa is not one story. I respect the diversity of its countries, cultures, cities and communities, and Bricks for Minds grew out of everything I saw on the ground, the challenges and the extraordinary potential alike.
Hands-on, not at a distance
I started Bricks for Minds to do something practical with everything those years on the continent showed me. On every trip I hand-deliver school supplies to a school chosen with local partners, and I give direct, ongoing support to MOCO, a home and school for 262 vulnerable children.
Because my field is commercial real estate, when it comes to building or expanding a school I can weigh the site, the build and its long-term running costs with a professional eye, and steer the funds raised toward what stands up both commercially and financially.
There’s no middle layer and no distance, just support I can see reaching children myself, with the longer-term vision of helping build schools.
Practical, transparent, locally connected
Identify real needs
Through trusted local relationships, not assumptions from a distance.
Select focused projects
Achievable initiatives with a clear, visible outcome.
Fund specific outcomes
Defined items, milestones or results, not vague overheads.
Share progress
Visually and transparently, so supporters see the impact.
Where support goes
Accountable by design
We keep the structure deliberately simple, so every supporter, individual or corporate, can see exactly where their money goes and how it is governed.
Funds are held and controlled by the foundation and reach the field without middlemen.
of every gift goes to programs; under 15% covers running costs and payment fees.
Each year we publish a short summary of what came in, what went out, and what it delivered.
Three projects, run with local partners.
What the foundation is doing, and preparing to do. Every project is simple, visible and accountable.
Three ways the foundation helps
School supply runs
Two bags, around 50kg of supplies, packed by hand and delivered straight to a school chosen with local partners.
$900 funds one full supply run.
MOCO: direct, ongoing support
Direct, ongoing support for MOCO, a registered home and school for 262 vulnerable children in Kilimanjaro.
$35/month sponsors one child.
A school of our own
Helping expand an established school outside Kigali into a place for around 600 girls, with the Catholic Church who hold the land. Early-stage, dependent on funding.
Every gift brings it closer.
Simple, visible, accountable
A defined item
Every gift funds something specific, a supply run, a child’s month, a piece of the build, never a general pot.
Photos and receipts
You see exactly where it landed, with images and documentation sent back from the ground after each delivery.
Low overhead
Costs are kept lean; on monthly MOCO sponsorship, for example, around 86% reaches the school directly.
Help pack the next run
Every contribution goes towards supplies for the next trip, ongoing support for MOCO, and the long-term goal of a school of our own. However you help, you become part of it.
Back the work, directly.
Every contribution helps us move from good intentions to practical impact: a child’s school year, a suitcase of supplies, a classroom that gets built.
Where your support goes
Fund a supply run
Across Africa
When you fund a supply run, I buy around 50 kg of school supplies, which is about the limit most airlines allow as checked baggage, and carry them out by hand on my next work trip, then deliver them straight to a local school or orphanage chosen with partners on the ground. Runs travel with me on scheduled work trips, so delivery follows my travel calendar.
See what a run can include
Learning: pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, rulers, chalk, geometry sets, compasses, whiteboard markers, erasers & sharpeners, educational and story books, dictionaries, laminated wall maps and charts, flash cards, solar calculators and reusable mini whiteboards.
Play & sport: footballs with a pump, skipping ropes, frisbees, cones, inflatable globes, board games, puzzles and simple instruments like recorders.
Health & everyday: reading glasses, solar-powered study lamps, durable backpacks and reusable water bottles.
Support MOCO School
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
A registered home, orphanage and pre- & primary school for 262 vulnerable children, free education, boarding, three meals a day and medical care. We support MOCO directly, with help that reaches the children.
Build a school for 600 girls
Rwanda
Our long-term ambition: helping build a school for 600 girls in Rwanda, a safe, future-focused place to learn. This is a potential future project, dependent on the funding and partnerships to make it real. School gifts receive progress updates at every milestone: the agreement, the study, the build.
Every gift comes with photos and receipts once it’s delivered, so you see exactly where it went.
Give in a minute
One-off or monthly, in your currency. Card, Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Tax-deductible giving. Gifts to the foundation may be tax-deductible for Czech taxpayers, and may also be deductible for donors elsewhere in the EU/EEA under their local rules. We’ll send a donation confirmation (potvrzení o daru) for every gift. If you’d like a formal donation agreement (darovací smlouva), useful especially for companies or larger gifts, email us at [email protected] and we’ll arrange it.
Can I cancel a monthly gift anytime?
How much reaches the school?
When will I see photos from my gift?
Will I get a tax receipt?
What if the school build doesn’t go ahead?
Who is behind the foundation?
For companies & major donors
Larger gifts and corporate partnerships let us do more, faster, and we make them easy to justify, report and recognise.
Sponsor children at team scale: 10 children for $350/month, or fund a defined build: a kitchen, a dormitory, a school bus. Partners receive photo reports, a donation agreement (darovací smlouva) and simple invoicing.
Let's talk
You can support Bricks for Minds Foundation as an individual donor, corporate sponsor, project partner, or simply by opening the right door.
Prefer email? Reach us directly at [email protected].
MOCO Pre & Primary School
“We Raise, We Teach, We Serve.” A registered home and school for 262 vulnerable children in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.
A short visit to MOCO, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.
More than a school, a home
MOCO is a registered NGO school (EM 21210) serving 262 orphans, children with disabilities and children from extremely poor families, from Pre-Primary to Standard VII.
It provides free education, boarding, three meals a day, medical care, uniforms and learning materials, run by a team of 29: teachers, matrons, cooks, guards and a driver.
Bryson
Bryson was three when he suffered a severe leg fracture. In the community, an injury like that often means a child is left behind, because families cannot afford professional medical care.
Thanks to a donor, he got the care he needed and made a full recovery. These days, he smiles a lot more.
A small story, but the real one: the difference between being reached and being left behind.
Why support matters now
- 98 pupils walk 5–12 km to reach school each day.
- 110 boarders sleep in two overcrowded classrooms, there is no dormitory.
- Meals are cooked over three stones and eaten outside, even in the rain.
- Teachers have gone unpaid for four months and are at risk of leaving.
Sustain a child, month by month
MOCO runs on about 75,000 TZS, roughly $30, per child each month, covering meals, clean water, school supplies, utilities and a contribution toward teacher salaries. A standing gift of $35 a month fully sponsors one child, and around 260 monthly sponsors keep the whole school running.
RecommendedSponsor one child in full: meals, clean water, supplies, utilities and a share of teachers’ pay.
Sponsor two children, month after month.
Sponsor five children, a small corner of the school.
Every $35 sends $30 straight to MOCO; the remaining ~$5 (about 14%) covers the foundation’s running costs and payment fees.
Build something lasting
Beyond the monthly running costs, one-time gifts keep teachers in classrooms and fund the facilities MOCO is still missing.
Supports one teacher for a year.
A 30-seat school bus, safe transport for ~150 pupils.
A modern kitchen and dining hall for 300.
A 200-bed dormitory with bathrooms and solar.
Sponsor a child at MOCO
$35 a month fully sponsors one child: meals, clean water, supplies and a share of teachers’ pay. Around 260 monthly sponsors keep the whole school running.
A school for 600 girls, outside Kigali.
Our most ambitious hope: helping turn an established school on the edge of Kigali into a place that can educate 600 girls. It is early, and nothing is yet agreed, but the vision is real, and it belongs to people already doing the work.
Where it began
In December 2025 I visited an established school just outside Kigali. The land and buildings belong to the Archdiocese of Kigali, which has supported this community for years.
Walking the site, it was easy to see both what is already there and what it could become with the right support behind it.
“You educate girls, you educate the country.”
From an existing school to a future for 600 girls
The plan is not to start from nothing, but to expand what already stands: growing the current facilities into a school built around the education of 600 girls.
Because my background is in commercial real estate, I can weigh the things that decide whether a project like this works, the site, the design, the build cost and the running costs once it opens, and steer the funds raised toward what is genuinely viable and built to last.
I am in early conversations with the Church about this, through a separate project where we are already working together. If those talks grow into something firm, the foundation hopes to help make the expansion possible.
A real site, a real plan
A local architect has already drawn up the scope: new classrooms and a library, a dining hall and kitchen, and dormitories, set among the existing buildings on the hill.
Next milestone: a formal agreement with the Church, then a funded feasibility study.
Want to help this happen?
You don’t need to fund a wing: every gift, large or small, brings this closer. And if you, your company or your network could help in a bigger way, we would love to talk, no pledge required.
Corporate travel, with a reason to pack heavy.
My work in commercial real estate runs across the complex and emerging markets I cover, in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. I travel light, just a carry-on, so the checked-baggage allowance I am entitled to goes to something better than a second case of my own: school supplies, carried by hand to the children who need them.
It started with one bag to Rwanda
The first was not a plan. I had a work trip to Rwanda, some spare room in my luggage, and the thought that the space could be useful. One bag of supplies, handed over in person.
It is now standard on almost every trip where it is possible. I fill the checked allowance I would otherwise leave empty with pens, pencils, notebooks, books and basics, and deliver them by hand to a school chosen with local partners.
Judgment, not just good intentions
Working in these markets day to day, I have learned what separates a project that lasts from one that stalls: the site, the real local build and running costs, and whether it can be delivered and sustained by people on the ground.
So the foundation commits only to what is viable, and runs everything through trusted local partners. Local expertise, local cost, local execution.
From my flat in Prague to a classroom
Every run starts at home. In the year since that first bag, packing has become its own small ritual: supplies bought across Prague, spread out on the floor and the table, then sorted and pressed into two cases until the zips barely close.
On the last trip it was not only me. My son’s kindergarten pitched in, donating school supplies and children’s books, so a class of little ones in Prague helped fill the cases for children they will never meet.
Where the bags have gone
Each run starts as two suitcases packed by hand and carried out on the trip. Here is where they have been delivered so far, country by country. Swipe through each one.
Kenya
Pens, exercise books, sharpeners and hygiene packs, shared out class by class at a coastal primary school. The children tore them open on the spot, holding everything up the moment it became theirs.
Rwanda
Two cases packed in Europe and carried out by hand, then unpacked with the school’s teachers. Colour pencils, notebooks and classroom basics went straight into the children’s hands the same morning.
Burundi
A morning with the children of an orphanage run by local sisters: school supplies, footballs and hygiene items, plus juice and treats for the whole yard, all handed over in person alongside the staff who care for them every day.
Tanzania
Two full suitcases opened in front of a hall of children, everything from pencils and notebooks to footballs and skipping ropes. Delivered in person to a community school and children’s home, with time spent in the classrooms and with the youngest ones.
Send the next bag
Every run is supplies bought and carried by hand, and every gift comes back to you in photos and receipts once delivered, so you see exactly where it landed.