Impact Stories
This year, we introduced an exciting new e-learning program in our schools. Grade 1 to 3 teachers are now using interactive tablets to teach their math classes. The students and teachers are absolutely loving it! Lessons are fun and interactive. Attendance and participation is sky rocketing. And most importantly, students are gaining a better understanding of how to do math! We asked one of our teachers, Wilfred, to tell us how the new e-learning program (iSchool) has made an impact.
This month, students began using our new Library for the first time. If I could bottle up the joy here and send it to you, I most certainly would! While at the Library, students have had the opportunity to read books, put together puzzles, and draw pictures. A few things I’ve observed...
Many of our students have never seen a puzzle. It is so much fun to watch them twist and turn each piece, seeing how colors and shapes line up together. This one little activity is growing and shaping their brains in new ways.
The atmosphere is buzzing with excitement! We completed the renovations to our Library and have been busy moving in this month. Building furniture, buying furniture, arranging furniture… and then filling up furniture with books and resources, the place is coming together beautifully. For the past two weeks, our growing team of 5 staff (more on that news later) has been working from our new office within the Library. It’s so much fun to be working in a space we’ve created and to be dreaming of all the ways we can use it.
2018 began with a wild start. With a devastating cholera outbreak in Lusaka, our schools were closed for an extended period and all of our training programs were cancelled. During this chaotic time, our School Directors were hard at work sourcing funds and supplies to help improve their sanitation and hygiene standards. The cholera outbreak has now been contained and our schools opened again last week… cleaner than ever!
Today marks four years since we began our work in Zambia. Take a look at just how far we've come...
FLASHBACK TO APRIL 2014
In our second training ever, I began to teach the School Directors how to manage their finances. We were all learning so many things (especially me). I covered a multitude of topics, but the one thing that truly stuck with them was the cashbook. Prior to this training, the schools had very few financial records and rarely knew how much money they had at any given time. But the concept of a simple cashbook that showed their current balance mesmerized them and they immediately began to use it. Equipped with this one simple tool, our schools began to see a change in their financial status.
This Impact Story was written by one of our School Administrators in their latest grant report.
Let's look at Jessie. She is a grade 5 pupil at Flying Angels. She has been at this school since her Grade 3. Jessie loves to play and have fun both in and outside school. Her parents are business people; hence, they do not have time to take care of her before they knock off at 17 {leave work at 5pm}. Hence, she is always home alone after school for 2 years now. Can you imagine?!
This though is a story of the past because thanks to Impact One, the school has built 2 extra classrooms to ensure that Jessie can now be in school from morning to 16 hours doing what she loves most.
This week, I stood in the back of a 2nd grade classroom and observed the Literacy lesson. Using handmade flashcards, the students reviewed all of the letter sounds they've learned complete with fun actions. Then one by one, the students came up to a handmade letter board and created their own 3 letter words with the sounds. Together, the class sounded out each 3 letter word. Tears filled my eyes as I watched these children reading! Just last year, if I had stood in the back of this same classroom, not a single child would have been able to identify letters or their sounds, much less make any words from them. Our Teacher Training and Mentoring is making an incredible impact in the classrooms.
It's been a very exciting month for our schools as we began distributing this year's grants! Although this is our 4th round of grants, the excitement never fades. Our grant program has resulted in significant transformation in our schools. Not only does it enable them to purchase much needed educational resources, but it allows our School Directors to build many new skills.
One skill they have learned is proposal writing. Having written four different proposals to Impact One over the past few years, they are now confident to engage other donors as well.
As 2016 comes to an end, there is a sense of excitement within our schools that I've never witnessed before. They are pumped... they are confident... and they are ready for the new year!
At our last management training of the year, our schools gathered together for three intense days of planning. It was the first time our schools have ever put an entire year's plan on paper.
Impact One Initiative is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
All donations are 100% tax-deductible.
