Train 1,000 Zimbabwean Students On Leadership

Dear Lead Us Today supporter,

A few months ago, you joined the Lead Us Today family by donating and supporting our mission to inspire, empower and mobilize young Zimbabweans to make an impact in their communities. We are very grateful for your contribution towards our 2013/4 programming. As I mentioned to you, we have not yet used your generous contribution – we will begin to at the start of our next fiscal year on August 1^st, 2013.

I would still like to update you on our progress in our current fiscal year. As you might know, last year we raised $7,550 through GlobalGiving! These contributions made up a significant 38% of our $20,000 budget for 2012/3 programs. Doubtless, your contribution is key in enabling us to deliver on our mission and helps build the future of a whole country, Zimbabwe. Our students are deeply grateful to you for your incredible support.

We are pleased to report that we have accomplished all of our goals for the 2012/3 programs cycle. In the past year we:

• Trained a spirited and engaged team of sixteen mentors who received intensive training to prepare them for their year-long commitment to train and mentor students on leadership and entrepreneurship.
• Refined our leadership and entrepreneurship training curriculum so that it adapts concepts developed by the world's leading scholars such as Ronald Heifetz, Richard Hackman and Marshall Ganz while simultaneously infusing locally specific approaches to teaching those concepts.
• Recruited, trained and mentored 320 students over the course of ten months.
• Supported students as they designed and launched community development projects. The impressive projects students are currently working on include:
  • Establishing a catering business in Mpopoma High School, which has an enrollment of 2,000 students. Lead Us Today students have recruited unemployed youth and arranged for them to receive catering lessons. Soon, they will open a canteen in the school that provides hot, nutritious meals to student and staff.
  • Building a culture of recycling in the Nkulumane community by partnering with a recycling company in Zimbabwe, the National Waste Collectors, which collects recyclable waste that students gather from schools in their area.
  • Making and selling educational toys that stimulate young children intellectually to Early Childhood Development programs in primary schools around Bulawayo.

Please take time to view the attached pictures that bring our progress to life.

Our 2012/3 programs cycle ends in July 2013. We are excited to see what students accomplish through their projects. Indeed, thanks to your increased support, we will accomplish twice this in our next programs cycle!

This report comes as we celebrate our 3-year anniversary, which is on May 29th. We have come a very long way since our founding and we are excited for what the future holds for us. We hope that you can continue to be part of us by supporting our work.

In June, we will extend our campaign to raise $25,000 for our 2013/4 programs cycle through GlobalGiving. I hope you can consider making another contribution on GlobalGiving by simply following this link and donating from as little as $10: http://goto.gg/12608.

Once more, thank you for your continued support!

With warm gratitude,

Dalumuzi Mhlanga

Founder and CEO