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.

SPORTS FANS

The importance of sport materials goes beyond fun and games at Zegaw School. 14-year old grade four student Getachew Mehari attributes being able to "create good health and keep it up" to this invaluable investment, while nine year old Silas Gebre says "Sport materials create love among students." Letezgina Weldecheal, in grade 2, explains that the students so value being able to play sports that they each contribute 1 Birr to replace materials as they wear out. So far they have collected 109 Birr from parents excited to see their kids developing physically as well as academically. Principal Goitom Berhe is proud to report that girls like Silas and Letezgina are coming out to play in full force, and the school has reached gender equity on all of its sports teams, which include volleyball, running and skipping.

school clubs: focusing on extracurricular talents

The student leader training and materials you invested in for the School Club Improvement arm of the Quality Classrooms project breathed new life into five types of existing school clubs that had otherwise fallen to the wayside due to lack of funding. Although they are thematically the same, each school has the leeway to interpret and run the clubs as they see fit. One school-Wazza Primary-has even added nine more student-run clubs to their previous five, and started eight student-and-teacher-run committees. Below are some highlights about how particular schools have interpreted the five original clubs strengthened by imagine1day.

Following is a poem from Eyerusalem Weldekiros, a female student from Wazza. imagine1day staff have translated it for you.

My Teacher   You are the one who leads forward You push us like a father The one who devotes your time with kids A producer of scientists A student who journeys in dreams You make the dreams true and make students visionaries A best-direction showing person A lover of children, teacher You are a different creature A father of knowledge Who did you did not treat? Who succeeds without you? Is it a pilot or a professor? Is it a journalist or a teacher? Is it an engineer or a doctor? All have had lessons from you And have great knowledge from you You are the one who is unforgettable forever You are in my mind forever Live forever, and be respected You are a market where knowledge is purchased

life skills meet school clubs: the wazza way to bring back dropped out students

Life Skills teaching methodologies are designed to make lessons practical and relevant to the daily lives of children and their communities. Often topics covered in these lessons cross over to school club activities. Last spring, Wazza School provided us with a shining example of this when imagine1day's Executive Director, Sapna Dayal, met with their Girls' Club to distribute and demonstrate the use of underwear with reusable cloth menstrual pads. Just a week later, the club performed a play called "Bringing Back Dropped-Out Students" in front of the whole school about the cultural barriers that girls face as they begin to menstruate-which often lead to drop outs and early marriage. Following the performance, teacher Fetseg Weldekiros again demonstrated the use of the pads and underwear to all the students-girls and boys grades one through eight-to promote sensitivity and awareness not only at the school, but to have it spread to students' homes and into the community.

Below is a letter from teacher Fetseg describing the situation at Wazza before and after the introduction of the menstrual pads and the Girls' Club performance.

The impact of the menstrual pads given by imagine1day

It is known that in our society whether because of lack of resources or lack of awareness the majority of women do not use underwear. Students of Wazza are part of this problem. Some of the problems faced by women of the school because of menstruation were:

• Being absent from class
• Disease
• Unhygienic body odor due to...
• Not knowing the proper use of menstrual pads
• Shyness

imagine1day gave 20 pairs of underwear and pads to see the impact and indeed it brought a very great impact:

• Menstruating female students are never absent
• They now know how to make use of underwear
• They are clean and no longer have bad body odor
• They are very thankful to imagine1day

science kits bring theory to life

The numbers are in. Where students previously struggled to grasp earthly phenomena via verbal descriptions or in diagrams, now test tubes, beakers, pulleys and petrie dishes make textbook theory in chemistry, physics and biology come to life. Students are showing a greater understanding of the science curriculum. At Wazza Primary, deepened interest in the subject has spurred the creation of an extracurricular Science Club. Below is a breakdown of the impact you have made in seven rural Ethiopian schools:

active learning - children should be seen and heard

Another high-impact teaching methodology that is showing great success is Active Learning. The 33 teachers you trained passed the training on to 88 of their colleagues, for a total of 121 teachers dropping a top-down, lecture approach for a student-centered, participatory approach to learning. Students used to sit passively in rows, take in information, and then regurgitate it into an exam. Now they are grouped together and encouraged to be noisy. Weaker students are mixed with stronger students to bring them up to speed. Instead of being fed lessons, groups of students are given questions and exercises to figure out together. Teachers also employ teaching aids-models of real objects-to bring ideas to life. Pedagogical centres across the Ethiopian countryside are now filled with model tools, pots, animals, clothing, instruments, even a television as seen in Girawerra School here.

reading corners open doors for a new generation

In the rural villages where imagine1day intervenes, roughly 80% of the adult population cannot read or write. With the provision of school Reading Corners, you are empowering the first ever literate generation in 11 communities-that's over 3,000 children who will fare much better than their parents because of you. Many are even teaching their parents to read when they sign books out from the school and take them home overnight. Student interest in reading is overwhelmingly positive (at Zegaw School, students even come to school on their opposite shift to read in the library); and all school directors report that access to reference and story books has led to an increase in academic achievement. The most popular book? The English Picture Dictionary gets tons of little thumbs up.

kids say the most wonderous things

...and now you've empowered them to write those things down. A simple provision of paper and pencils has inspired young students to improve their writing skills and capture their creative expression, "which is very helpful in finding out what students need and to see their interests," says Principal Ayalew Dimtsu of Girawerra School. The following are some fantastic figures from the 11 schools that received this very popular intervention:

Young Abadi Hindeya, a grade 8 student at Girabered School recently wrote and recited the following poem at a special performance for imagine1day staff:

Thank you for investing in quality education for so many children in rural Tigray. Your investment is felt not only in their schools but extends to their homes and communities.