Goodbye, Term 3!
Bwanji from Katete!
I hope everyone is doing well. We wrapped up the 2023 school year across all of our schools last week – and what a year it has been! Today, while traveling up to Katete, I spent some time reflecting on everything we have been able to accomplish this school year. I am, as always, grateful to our impressive team who have been able to accomplish so much in a year not without its challenges. This year, we:
📝Signed a Memorandum of Understanding to pave the way for government teachers to implement our proven education model, the eSchool 360. This MoU comes after a decade of working with the Ministry, across different partnerships and MoUs, and with different leaders across the ministry offices. One of the most exciting pieces to come from this MoU are the ways that we continue to work with the government on a local level through their Standards Officers. We do this on a termly basis across all of the districts that we work as a way to align priorities with the ministry and introduce them to different facets of our work. We are looking forward to growing this work and having more government teachers under our eSchool 360 model in the years to come!
🌍Rolled out a climate change curriculum in partnership with Earth Warriors, with the goal of empowering students to work towards a better earth. This year, our first to fourth graders worked through a set of weekly lessons on climate change – learning about the Earth’s resources and how to protect them, climate change and how to reduce its effects, and on community engagement. We weaved our Go Green Day, tree planting, and upcycling activities into this curriculum and are proud of our students and their activism!
📚Achieved our highest grade 7 pass rates in history, at 86% (compared to 55% for the district!). These graduates overcame a set of major setbacks – cholera, COVID-19, and more. Their presence and success on exam day speaks to the commitment and tenacity of each of them, their families and support networks, and their teachers. Each day, our team works to ensure our students receive high-quality instruction, have proper supplies and infrastructure at their school, and are safe and happy in their classrooms.
♀️Brought menstrual health hygiene + pad-making workshops to three new districts, supporting adolescent girls to continue school when they are menstruating. This was our biggest expansion of this project in history as we brought it to Sinda, Petauke and Lusangazi across our Expansion schools. These workshops aim to destigmatize menstruation and create a positive environment for the girls to create their own pads. I got to see this project in action this year and was astounded by the diligence of the girls, as well as the light-hearted nature of the workshop.
🧒🏿Strengthened our child protection programs to make sure that schools are safe environments for our most at-risk students. The work we do in child protection, especially to support our girl students, can be incredibly difficult. I am so grateful to our child protection team who lead this work with resolve, determination, and a strong conviction that all children deserve the chance to learn and live safely.
-Reshma