The more time we spend in our schools, the more we understand the challenges they face. One of the biggest challenges is literacy. "How do we teach reading when we have no books for the children? How do we give each child the attention they need when we have more than 80 others to attend to? How do we teach reading skills when we've never been taught ourselves?" These are some of the questions our schools ask.
Our approach is to work together with our partner schools to address these questions. One by one, we are tackling the challenges they face to literacy. Last year, we collected more than 800 story books for our schools and created a buddy reading program for students to help each other learn. This year, we are training our teachers on a phonics-based approach to reading. And we are engaging more and more volunteers to spend 30 minute periods reading with the students.
As students learn to read, they are able to improve in every other subject. One shining example is a young man named Maloni. Maloni was 17 years old when he started attending Fountain of Life Community School. He had never been to school before and didn't even know his alphabet. With the dedication of his teachers, the encouragement of volunteers, and the presence of books, in less than one year, Maloni learned to read. He quickly became one of our lead readers in the buddy reading program. During his second year at school, he studied for the 7th Grade National Exams and passed! In January of this year, he started 8th grade in a local government school.
Because Maloni has learned to read, he can learn anything! With each year of education, his future gets brighter!
Although there are many challenges in our schools, we are committed to tackling each one so that ALL CHILDREN have access to QUALITY EDUCATION! Thank you for partnering with us in giving these children a brighter future! You may be far away... but you are helping children in Zambia learn how to read.
Let that bring a smile to your face today!
~ Whitney