How a ‘pay it forward’ woman helps improve education in Kenya and Tanzania

Inching along at 5 a.m. in Silicon Valley traffic, Erna Grasz wondered whom she could call at that early hour. Across the world in East Africa, her friends Hellen Nkuraiya in Kenya and Emmy Moshi in Tanzania would be awake. She put in a call to Ms. Moshi and afterward to Ms. Nkuraiya. These early morning sessions, starting in 2006, evolved over the next year into an ongoing conversation about educating children and lifting communities.

Ms. Grasz and her husband had met the other two on a climbing trip at Mt. Kilimanjaro. The three “slightly crazy women,” as Grasz calls herself and her friends, had a common vision that education could provide

Focusing on the at-risk gradesFrom chefs to military officers