Building a school is the easy part. Sustaining a quality learning environment that addresses the needs of girls and boys requires vision, commitment and partnership.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

SIX MONTHS LONG AND GOING STRONG

With only half a year under their belts in their new school, Atsemba Grade 1-4 Community School's students, teachers and community members are making the most of your generous investment. From supporting an all-star Girls' Club to successfully implementing sustainable Income Generation Activities, Atsemba is becoming a centre of holistic, quality education for the entire community.

There are many more exciting changes in Atsemba. Read on and we'll tell you all about the exciting new developments at the school.

Vice Principal Huluf Abraha has seen a remarkable change in Atsemba since joining the school three years ago. The school has been transformed from a dass open-air school with 45 students to a full Grade 1-8 Primary School with 463 students. Huluf shares with us the dramatic changes that have occurred:

"Before you built this new school, our students faced many challenges attending school in the open-air. Not only was student enrollment very low, the community's commitment to the school was also lacking.

Now your school has changed our community. We only have five students in our community that should be in school and are not. We have the full support of the local church and community. We have teachers who are committed to giving the best quality education to their students. We have a bright future ahead of us with the trainings, resources and Income Generation Activities you have provided us with. We are empowered to educate generations to come."

To get you up to speed on the rapidly changing profile of your school, here is where things stand right now:

The first semester report cards are in and imagine1day is very proud of the students at Atsemba. Here's a run down of their average term scores:

*In the Tigray regional school system, Amharic, Ethiopia's national language, is not offered until Grade 3.

Vice Principal Huluf weighs in on the first semester grades and explains why he expects that his students' scores will continue to improve:

"These scores are very important to us and encourages our teaching staff. Our students struggled to pay attention in their old school because they were uncomfortable sitting on stones and under the hot sun. Now, they are sitting in new desks under a roof and protected by walls. They have windows for light and lots of new books and resources to enhance their education. Their scores are already better than they were in the open-air school. We expect that that they will continue to improve."

Atsemba's Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is an essential part of steering your school into the future along a successful, sustainable course. Six of the eleven PTA members participated in imagine1day’s PTA Training in 2010 and developed their skills in financial record keeping, Income Generation Activity (IGA) development, increasing enrollment in their school, and mobilizing their community, among other valuable strategies and skills.

We caught up with Atsemba PTA member Berhe Khasay to find out more:

"Our school is a great school. It is great because there are many different people working to make it a success. The PTA in Atsemba is active because we believe that the school benefits the whole community. Members from the entire community must participate and contribute. The teachers are responsible for teaching and the students are responsible for learning. The energetic PTA can take on many tasks and responsibilities to make the school successful without distracting the teachers and students from their primary responsibilities."

Here's a snapshot of the Atsemba PTA's recent accomplishments that have laid a solid foundation for the goals they have set for the coming year:

With basic education facilities and resources taken care of, teachers and students at Atsemba are ready to step it up and initiate their own programs to elevate the quality of education at their school.

One program that stands out is the Girls' Club's Pads for Peers Program which is starting to gain momentum. We sat down with Goitetom, Senbetu and Klela, three active Girls' Club members, to find out more about this awesome new development.

i1d: Girls, why did you decide to start Pads for Peers?

G: When we turned 13 or 14, we all started to menstruate. We knew what it was but we did not know how to manage it. As a result, we would come to school and sometimes the blood would soak through our dresses and onto the chairs. Other students would laugh at us (because they did not understand it). It was bad and it made us want to stay at home while we were menstruating.

K: We told our mothers and they made us fabric pads out of scraps of old clothes and other material. It helped a lot.

S: Something had to be done about it because girls were starting to stay at home for three or four days while they were menstruating. Not every girl was able to make a cloth pad, so we made a plan.

i1d: What was your plan?

G: With the help of one of our teachers we started to collect money from every adult female student in our school. There are not very many of us but we did it anyway. We collected one birr every month. Right now we have 30 birr for the project.

S: We will take the money and purchase pads from town for the girls who can't afford them. It depends on how much money we get. If we collect enough, we will purchase cloth ones that the girls can reuse.

i1d: Why is it important to provide pads for girls?

K: If a girl doesn't have a pad, she won't come to school. If you miss three or four days of school, you actually miss quite a lot of lessons. Three or four days every month can get you far behind in your studies. It can be discouraging and sometimes makes girls completely drop out of school.

S: Making sure all the girls in our school have pads is a simple solution to the problem. We all have them because we are fortunate. Our friends don't have them so we must help them.

Creativity is an important part of every student's education. The teaching staff at Atsemba is making strides to ensure that students are given the creative training and space they need to thrive.

Grade 1 teacher, Lemlem, explains more:

We participated in imagine1day's Creative Classroom Program and realized that art should be a part of all of our subjects. Now we integrate drawing and collages into different lessons to help the students understand concepts and better remember material. Working with the students through creative activities has taught me that there are many other reasons to continue doing art in our classes:

• Students develop their self-confidence to express their unique ideas and share their creations with their classmates.
• Students draw what they study and this visual aid helps them to remember what they have learned.
• It provides students with a new outlet to explain what they see and experience.
• Some students reflect their ideas and knowledge better through drawing than they do through writing.
• Many of our students have a vision to be an artist. Giving them the chance to draw and be creative in class helps them to develop and explore this vision.

The superstar Creative Classrooms Teacher, Desta, echoes Lemlem's opinions. "Art is one of the best ways for children to express themselves," Desta explains. "Children see and experience many things, often things that they don't always know how to describe with words. Art is a chance for them to explain all those things. They dream of different things and imagine different things - here they are given a space to share all of these things and more."

When we asked the teachers at Atsemba if we could talk to the Grade 4 student with the most exciting vision for their life we weren't completely prepared to meet Goitetom. Bursting into the staff room, she began talking and laughing almost before she had crossed the threshold. Radiating confidence and light, she shared her story with us. The more she shared, the more we came to realize that this 14 year old is anything but ordinary.

i1d: What is your favourite subject?

G: My favourite subject is English because it is an international language. I plan on going all over the world so I think that knowing English is going to be important for me.

i1d: Where are you planning on going?

G: I want to be a pilot so I will get to see the whole world. I am excited to meet new people and see new places.

i1d: Is your family supporting you in achieving your vision?

G: My family knows my vision and they are supportive of me. They give me everything I need to go to school like books, pens and clothes. They encourage me to study and read at every possible moment. Sometimes there are days that I am tired and wanting to sleep late, but my mom wakes me up and makes me go to school. She motivates me to keep learning and to keep growing.

i1d: Is it common to have parents that encourage you to go to school?

G: Not really. My parents have not always had this attitude towards my education. It was my effort that changed their minds. They didn't want me to go to school at first but I begged them and eventually they said yes. At first, they didn't like it that I was in school but every day when I came home I would share with them all the things I had learned. Slowly, the things I learned in school began to make our life at home better. We built a latrine at our house, started to wash our hands before we ate and began keeping the animals in a separate area. We started to have a better life and my parents knew it was because I was learning at school. Now they love that I go to school.

i1d: That's awesome. What happens next for you?

G: I will keep studying the most important subjects for me to become a pilot: English, physics, math and chemistry. I will go to high school and then to university. One day you will see me fly a plane.

They say that 'two is better than one' and they're certainly right. Because you believed Atsemba would thrive with a new school, they were given a chance and they ran with it. The community's tremendous commitment to providing quality education for their students has led imagine1day to support the construction of a new Grade 5-8 school building, which opened in October 2010. 16. Thanks to you, this is only the beginning of a long tale of quality, sustainable education in Atsemba.

We sat down with students of Atsemba's Grade 4 class to let them express to you their excitement about having the opportunity to continue their education through Grades 5-8.

We're only six months in and it's already clear that you have built a strong foundation for generations of students, families and community members to continue learning in Atsemba. Thanks to you, this is only the beginning of a long tale of quality, sustainable education in Atsemba.

With the transformation that we have seen in Atsemba in such a short time, it is hard to say how many thousands of different ways your investment will impact the Atsemba community over the years. We'll update you in another six months to keep you up to speed on the remarkable developments in Atsemba.

From Atsemba with love,

The imagine1day team