Elizabeth Burland is a junior at the University of Delaware studying public policy and also working toward a master's degree in urban affairs. In four years at the university she will graduate with a master's and undergraduate degree. This 2011 graduate of Daniel Hand High School is a woman who sets goals and plans to accomplish them. One of her goals this summer will be to go to Nicaragua.

Last summer Burland worked as an intern for buildOn, a non-profit organization that builds schools in some of the poorest countries on the planet. From her base in Stamford, she helped work with and manage high school and college chapters.

"My uncle introduced me to buildOn, which started out at General Electric, where he worked with the buildOn founder," she said. "I loved the work and the organization so much, I wanted to start a chapter at the University of Delaware."

That is exactly what she has done.

"It has been challenging. The first thing I needed to do was put together a leadership team, which I did over the summer. They have helped with recruiting. We started in the fall," she said, noting that there are now about 100 members in this chapter.

"We have made the decision to stay focused on education as our main mission," Burland said.

The other major decision the chapter made was to take on a school building project.

"It's pretty intimidating. We have to raise about $30,000 by March to build a school in Nicaragua. There is an online fundraising campaign where each member has created a page. We have other fundraisers. It's a lot of work, but I think we can do it," she said.

Burland explained her dedication to buildOn and why she believes it is an organization that deserves attention.

"This is not a charity. This is a movement. All the schools we build are requested by the community. We work with other organizations and we make sure the villages actually want the schools, that they will provide the effort to build and sustain the school. These must be self-sustaining projects. We provide the skilled labor and materials, buildOn student volunteers to break ground for the first week and then the community must carry on the build."

The buildOn website explains, "Our methodology's true power resides in the fact that buildOn classrooms are constructed in partnership with the very people who will be benefiting from them. buildOn provides the funding, engineering, materials, skilled labor, and supervision. The village provides a gender-balanced leadership team, thousands of hours of unskilled volunteer labor, and a promise that girls will attend the school in equal numbers with boys."

The organization is currently building schools in Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and of course, Nicaragua.

Burland is now working with the university's honors program to bring buildOn's CEO and founder Jim Ziolkowski to the campus in March. His book Walk in Their Shoes tells the story of how 21 years ago, he gave up a career in corporate finance at GE to create buildOn. He set out to explain how each of person can change the world.

"I know how student-driven this movement is, and it is very rewarding to bring it to campus," Burland said.

To learn more about buildOn, visit www.buildon.org.