We are excited to share some great news from USAP Community School! Our first Cambridge AS results are out for the 45 students including the 3 refugee students from Tongogara Refugee Camp in the first class of the USAP Community School. We are so proud of this achievement during these challenging COVID times of remote learning. 27 students earned A's in all three subjects, and 7 more got 2 A's and a B.
In Zimbabwe, schools are currently closed under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions but all our students continue their learning remotely through lessons delivered via Whatsapp. We are looking forward to schools reopening safely in the next few weeks. At the Tongogara Refugee Camp, our refugee students who are part of the peer tutoring group, TWEENS; have been actively tutoring other youths in the camp as well as carrying COVID19 awareness campaigns. Across the country, all our 45 students continue to prepare for their second and final Cambridge A-level exams later in October. We wish them success in their preparations and final exams!
As always, we are grateful to you as all of this would not have been possible without your support. We continue to raise funds to reach our goals of building our permanent campus and sustaining the costs of our operations, which we vigorously keep as low as possible. Together we are transforming lives, assisting talented and determined young people by providing opportunities to reach their potential. We can not thank you enough!
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Greetings from USAP Community School!
We are writing as we complete our first month back physically at our campus in Goromonzi! Schools resumed in March 2021 for the first term as the government relaxed lockdown restrictions in Zimbabwe. We welcomed all of the students back on campus and everyone has settled in comfortably.
The three students from the camp who are part of our initial USAP Community School class move into their second and last A level year. There are joined by four more refugee students in the second class. This brings our total to 7 students from our population of 70 overall, or 10% of our student body coming from the Tongogara Refugee Camp.
The TWEENS (Together We Educationally Empower Non-priviledged Students), the initiave started by our students at Tongogara Refugee Camp became even more useful as students in the camp were not going to school and depended on the tutoring provided by our students and peers. The initiative continues to source books and materials from Embassies and recently from the Naledi Foundation which supports girls education at the camp. We are proud of the TWEENS initiative and continue to support them in their service to youth at the camp.
As always, we are grateful to all of you for supporting the transformation of lives of refugee students through the USAP Community School and Education Matters Africa Foundation initiatives.
Best regards from all of us at Education Matters and USAP Community School!
Happy Holidays!
What a year it has been! Despite all of the challenges, we have made great strides in our work impacting refugee students from Tongogara Refugee Camp in Eastern Zimbabwe. Matson, a USAPer originally from DRC is off to Huron University in Canada in a week on a full Presidential scholarship. Prince is similarly off to start his journey at UWC Waterford in Eswatini.
The three students from the camp who are part of our initial USAP Community School class move into their second and last A level year. They will be joined by four more refugee students starting in January in the second class. This brings our total to 7 refugee students from our population of 70 overall, or 10% of our student body!
TWEENS (Together We Educationally Empower Non-Privileged Students), the initiative started by our students in camp, continues to provide tutoring and encouragement and counseling to students on the verge of dropping out of school in the refugee camp. They also have sourced books from Embassies and individuals to donate to the camp's library, school and for their own tutoring. We are proud of what they have accomplished and the inspiration they are to other refugee youth.
None of this would have been possible without your support. We thank you for continuing to support our intiiative to transform lives of refugee students through USAP Community School and Education Matters initiatives. Thank you!
Wishing you all joy during this holiday season and may we leap into what we hope will be a better 2021!
Best from all of us at Education Matters and USAP Commuity School,
Rebecca
Thank you once more for your support during World Refugee Week in our campaign to raise funds to support refugee students from Tongogara Refugee Camp to attend the USAP Community School. Our students in camp have been very engaged during the six months since we had to physically close USAP Community School. They have continued their studies remotely using a combination of WhatsApp and Google Classroom, using phones and kindles and solar chargers, as there is no access to electricity or Internet in the camp.
They also have used this time to engage with the community around them, founding a group they named TWEENS - Together We Educationally Empower Non-Privileged Students. Through Tweens they have done several campaigns on the importance of education among the youth of Tongogara Camp, including COVID19 awareness and tutoring. They also have embarked on reaching out to the expat community in Zimbabwe for book donations to the one library in Tongogara and have worked with the library staff to improve its access and services for the youth in camp.
We are excited that in line with the Ministry of Education's phased reopening COVID19 plans, we will be reopening USAP Community School and welcoming back our inaugural class of students on Monday, October 26. Our COVID19 reopening plan has been approved and we will bring back our students for two weeks of quarantine, before our boarding school community becomes a bubble that can hopefully interact fairly normally, with precautions and safeguards placed on those coming in and out of school, rather than those who will be safely on campus for the remainder of the year.
Our applications for a few class to join us in January 2021 are out with an October 26 deadline. We are excited to go through the selection process to bring in a new vibrant class to add to our growing school. We have also hired five new TAs to ou junior faculty, while the first crop are now settled in university and will be hiring two new teachers to start with us in January. We are grateful for your support that will enable us to continue to include refugee students in our school community.
With continued gratitude,
Rebecca/Mai Mano, the Tweens and Education Matters team
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