Bringing Technology to Rural schools in Zimbabwe

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to you for your continued support of our Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) project. According to statistics, more than 2.5 billion people live in rural areas of developing countries which are underserved because development is disproportionately concentrated in urban areas.  Zimbabwe is no exception.  It has a population of over 14 million. More than 75% of the population of Zimbabwe lives in the rural areas where teachers and students have limited access to technology. The majority of the rural schools do not offer computer training because they simply dont have the funds to purchase computers and the teachers lack computer skills.  

After high school, over 70% of rural students drop out of school due to poverty and they end up going to urban areas to look for jobs yet they are ill-prepared to enter the workforce.

The ultimate goal of this project is to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban schools. The following are some of the positive outcomes linked to the use of technology in schools:

• Improvement in the quality of education as the teachers will have better tools for teaching
• Improvement in students' academic performance 
• Increase in economic opportunities as there is a need for computer skills in today's workforce

Through your donations you are a playing a major role in helping us address the "Digital Divide". To date we have worked in collaboration with our in-country partner, Computers For Zimbabwean Schools (CZWs) to provide five computer training workshops to 25 teachers.   The workshops were a big success! Here is what some of the teachers had to say:

In His Own Words By The Headmaster

"We are grateful for the workshops that have been conducted by the Tekeshe Foundation with the help of the donors. The workshops have been a great eye opener! During one of these workshops, the instructor gave us an overview of the 21st century tools that CZWs offers for teaching. He demonstrated how to use a projector. This topic generated a lot of interest among the teachers. As the headmaster of Rimbi High school, I made a commitment to the teachers that I would purchase some projectors for our school. 

I am also very grateful to the Tekeshe Foundation  and to the donors for bringing the internet to Rimbi High! "

In His Own Words By One Of The Teachers

"We thank you very much for providing the funds that enable us to attend computer training workshops.  We have benefited tremendously from these workshops.  We kindly ask you to help us with computers that way we can have hands-on training during the workshops. This would be of great help.  Thanks again for helping us."

Update On Laptops For The Teachers

Though this proect is a big success, one of the challenges is that the teachers have limited access to computers. We are pleased to announce that we are in the process of forming a parnternship with a company that offers a program for teachers to purchase laptops through monthly installments. We will give you an update on this program in our next progress report.

Thanks again for all your support!

Best Regards,

Thelma