Impact Stories
At the end of every year, we take time to reflect on our progress and dream of our future. Last week, we invited our partner schools to join us as we embarked on this process. We asked them one simple question… what does it mean to be a part of the Impact One Network?
The first response… it means a lot!
Then each person began to share story after story of how the Impact One Network has made a difference in their schools.
Over the past year, we have provided ongoing training and mentoring for our schools to implement a new e-learning program. They have been teaching math lessons to the 1st to 3rd grade students using interactive tablets. Through weekly mentoring sessions, the teachers developed skills to operate the technology, facilitate multiple lesson activities, and equip students to work independently to understand the content. This month, 8 teachers graduated from the Teaching with iSchool Program having mastered all of the required skills!
Our core priority is training teachers with new skills, but that doesn't mean we are always the trainers! In our network of 9 schools, our teachers and directors are gifted with a variety of skills. One of our roles at Impact One is to give them a platform to share those skills with each other. One of those platforms is the Teacher Group Meetings, which are organized by our School Directors to encourage and equip their own teachers.
This year, our School Directors have chosen to use the Teacher Group Meetings as an opportunity to build skills in Creative and Technology Studies.
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!
Impact One Initiative is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
All donations are 100% tax-deductible.
