Build a Computer Classroom for Zanzibar Students

Hello from Zanzibar!

We’re excited to share with you the progress we have made since our last update. In February, we were able to purchase the remaining laptops needed for our Computer Classroom/IT Lab, which now allows us to offer computer classes to more students. These courses are in high demand, and your generosity has helped us fulfill our mission of providing quality education to our students. We are immensely grateful for your continued support.

However, we still have some work to do to get everything up and running smoothly. We need to purchase software for each computer, including Windows, Microsoft Office, Anti-virus Software, and Typing Software, as well as networking cables. We are pleased to inform you that we are now an approved nonprofit with Microsoft, which allows us to receive donated software through Microsoft's nonprofit vendor, TechSoup. Although TechSoup charges an admin fee for each installation of donated software, it still offers us significant savings over the retail price of the software. We estimate that we will need to raise an additional $2,940 in donations to purchase the remaining software and networking cable for each computer. Additionally, we require $50 in monthly donations to cover the cost of our new high-speed fiber, which will enable us to teach web design, social media marketing, and email communications. If you could help us with either a one-time donation towards our additional software needs or a monthly donation towards our internet connectivity, we would be immensely grateful. 

In other news, we are delighted to announce that Welcome Ideas is in the final stages of registration with the Zanzibar Vocational Training Authority. This registration will allow us to offer our vocational certificate program to students, which is a more comprehensive program than the short courses we are currently offering. We have more students than we currently have places for in this program, but we know that those selected for the program will have some great opportunities in building their own small tourism business or in gaining meaningful employment within the tourism/hospitality sector here on Zanzibar. We expect that by our next update, we will have completed our registration and will have begun the first vocational certificate courses. The computers that you helped us purchase will be a critical component of that program and will allow us to offer it to more students.

Finally, we are pleased to share with you that a leadership seminar sponsored by the Libre Foundation in Holland was hosted at Welcome Ideas. A handful of our students, our In-Country Director, and the leadership team of Juwasha (a school for children with disabilities that we work with here in Zanzibar) attended this engaging seminar, where they developed their leadership skills through practical learning activities. We were honored to host this seminar at Welcome Ideas and look forward to hosting the Libre Foundation again in the future.

We want to express our gratitude once again for your continued support of our program and our students. With your help, we are excited about all the things our students will achieve over the next year. You are a critical part of our success, and we could not do this without you.

Kind regards,

Kenn

Links:

• Welcome Ideas Website