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, February 17, 2011

Environmental protection and sustainable land management have not always been at the top of Ethiopia's agenda. With a civil war now fading into distant memory, the country is in a position to begin the long, important process of reforestation, replanting the land, and empowering local leaders.

That's exactly why Mobilizing, Planting, Maintaining (MPM) is such a vital program for imagine1day. Using tree planting, hand tools and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Training, imagine1day has been working to provide 11 communities with the necessary components to improve and sustain the quality of education at their schools and in their environments.

Join the imagine1day team as we journey to four schools to explore the various ways in which your valuable contribution is making an impact.

 

 

Welcome to Wazza Grade 1-8 Community School. Set atop a plateau in Northern Ethiopia, it is a picturesque cluster of buildings that is truly a center of education for the nine communities that surround it.

Hand Tools Divide Soil and Unite Communities

Shovels, picks and hoes. These tools, that seem so simple at first glance, can really make an impact. Wazza's Principal, Halefom, tells the tale of a community and a school that were united to work towards a common goal of quality education through - you guessed it - hand tools:

"Before imagine1day, our community was entirely separate from our school. They had little contact with us and were not participating in our activities at all. After imagine1day delivered the hand tools to us, we set up a program by which the community could borrow the tools for free to use on their farms and for household chores. This transformed the relationship between the school and the community. In the past three months we have had 50 people borrow hand tools. Between the time when we received the hand tools and today, our enrollment has increased from 400 students to 772. I'm not saying it's only because of the hand tools, but they definitely played an important part. We only had five hand tools before imagine1day gave us additional ones. I believe that a school exists to educate and provide new, creative solutions for the society's problems. Now, with these hand tools we are able to provide solutions for our community."

One such farmer is Hawaz. Even though he has lived most of his life literally a stone's throw away from the school, Hawaz was skeptical of it and when he had his first two sons, he didn't send them to school when they were the right age to start. Why? We sat down with him to find out:

H: Before I did not participate in the school at all. It is right above my house, up the hill, but I felt that it had no impact on me and did not benefit me at all. I never went there and did not get involved in the activities there.

H: The Principal came to me one day and told me that they had been given hand tools that we, as community members, were free to borrow. He said that I just needed to come to the school to pick the ones I wanted to use then I could keep them and use them on my farm for as long as I wanted.

H: I began to borrow the hand tools regularly because they are very useful for farming, building and maintaining different things around my house. I realized that the school was doing many things that benefit my family so I decided to send my children to school. Today, one of my sons is in Grade 1 and the other is in Grade 2. My daughter is not old enough to go to school yet but when she is old enough, I will send her to school as well.

Hawaz isn't just an on-again, off-again hand tool borrower. He's a regular and is proud of the projects that he was able to complete with the use of the various hand tools that were provided to Wazza with your generous support. Check out his future plans:

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Yikuno-Amlak's Green Thumb

Hawaz isn't the only person planting seedlings at home. Meet
Yikuno-Amlak, a Grade 4 student at Wazza who is famous for his green thumb! Two and a half years ago, with your support, imagine1day was able to plant over 1,940 fruit and shade seedlings at Wazza. On that day, Yikuno-Amlak was given a small guava seedling to take home. Since then, Yikuno-Amlak has been taking care of the little tree and this has planted seeds in his mind about the different ways in which trees can impact his life:

"I was given one guava tree by my school which I got to take to plant at my house. Because I learned how important trees are at school, I convinced my family to plant 54 eucalyptus trees on our property as well as 50 gesho trees."

"I will use the products from the trees to sell at the market. From the money I earn I can take care of myself by purchasing clothes, food and exercise books.

"I protect these trees like I protect my life. I give them fertilizer and water, prune them so they have a healthy shape and I build fences to protect them from being eaten by animals. I also cut back other plants, away from my seedlings, so that they have enough sunshine to grow."

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Not two kilometers down the gravel road from Wazza is a small pathway that runs beside a near-dry riverbed. Snaking up into the mountains, the path leads you to Girawerra Grade 1-4 Community School, which is a source of education and inspiration for all who visit.

Girawerra has thrived on all three elements of the MPM project. Their most impressive development has been the activity of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) since receiving training in 2008 and a refresher course in October 2010.

Principal Sishay has been at the helm in Girawerra for a year and a half now and has seen remarkable changes in the community. When we sat down with him just a few weeks ago he could hardly keep his thoughts from spilling out over each other when we asked him just how much imagine1day's PTA Training had affected his community.

PS: Learning how to avoid dropout and bring back dropped out students was definitely the most valuable thing I learned. It can be challenging working with families and convincing them to let their children come back to school but the training gave me confidence that it is possible. It also taught me why it is important to work to eliminate dropouts.

PS: When our PTA members went to the training, we had seven students who had dropped out of school and did not come back. But today, all seven are back in school and we have had zero dropouts.

PS: They learned a lot about how to mobilize the community to contribute to different projects at the school. Community participation in the school is important and they hadn't really taken advantage of that before. Our PTA had read a study published by the government describing the importance of providing access to Grade Zero (Kindergarten) education for students, especially in rural communities. So, using what they had learned at the training, the PTA mobilized the community and they built a Kindergarten classroom.

PS: We have five goals for the future of our school:

One of Girawerra PTA's great achievements is bringing their dropout rate down to zero and bringing dropped out students back to class. Meet two of Girawerra's Grade 2 students who had stopped coming to class until one day a PTA member came knocking on both of their doors:

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Daeritta Grade 1-8 School is nestled on the edge of a large ravine overlooking an expansive valley divided into a patchwork of terraced farmland. Home to 576 students, 275 of them being girls, Daeritta is a catalyst for developing future leaders in Ethiopia.

Parent Teacher Associations were introduced in all schools in 1994 through the country's Education and Training Policy. Ethiopia is a traditionally patriarchal society and, as a result, it is rare to see women in positions of leadership - even on school PTAs. That's why imagine1day worked with the Woreda Education Office to require that all of our partner schools have gender balanced PTAs. To support this change in structure, imagine1day teaches at PTA Training sessions about the importance of supporting women in leadership.

Alem and Tadele, the Grade 2 teachers at Daeritta, attended PTA Training and were deeply impacted by the part about gender balance:

"Keeping a PTA gender balanced is important because it encourages women from the community to participate in the school's activities. It also encourages them to speak their minds and share their ideas with others inside and outside of the school. When adult women are seen in positions of leadership it gives the female students confidence to lead as well. In this way they learn to trust themselves and try things they otherwise wouldn't have."

- Alem

"Our society is a male-dominant society. Priority is given to males in everything. For example, a family will often choose to send their sons to school but not their daughters. For this reason we work with the female students to help them advocate within their homes and with their neighbours to prevent early marriage and to increase female enrollment. It used to be just the PTA that worked on these issues but the PTA has empowered the students and now everyone is working together to bring gender balance to all areas of life."

- Tadele

Data collected over the past three years indicates high and steadily increasing enrollment of female students:

"We will continue to keep increasing enrollment of boys and girls in our school but we are specifically committed to keeping female enrollment and attendance high. We have learned that 70% of contributions within a household come from women, therefore, they must be educated since they have such a great influence."

- Tadele

But just how many students in the area are missing from the register? Data collected earlier this year by Principal Aiwa shows that they're not missing too many.

"Our PTA hopes that by going door-to-door in the community we can bring these 27 children back to school. We are committed to achieving a zero percent dropout rate from our school and a 100% registration rate."

- Alem

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From Daeritta our journey takes us out of the mountains and across the flat, golden plains to Gerabered - home to Gerabered Grade 1-8 Community School. In 2008 imagine1day delivered 1,940 fruit and shade seedlings to Gerabered.

A few of the trees yielded their first fruit this year and it was only the beginning of something much bigger. School leaders expect that next year the trees will bear enough fruit for the school to sell to the local community and at nearby markets so that they can generate income to reinvest in school programs, school clubs and teaching materials and resources.

The trees are not just an expected source of income for the school; they have become instrumental in teaching the students about the environment and why it is important to protect it. Abadi, Gerabered's Grade 5-8 Natural Science Teacher, tells us more:

Despite the seemingly hostile soil conditions on the school's compound, the seedlings are thriving. Much of the credit goes to Gerabered's teachers who have organized a competition between their students to see who can raise the biggest, healthiest tree. Students take it very seriously and have even built small, traditional drip irrigation pots for their plants to ensure that they don't get thirsty over the weekend. The community also contributes compost made out of animal droppings and plant clippings to help the seedlings grow.

Some of the best trees on the compound belong to members of the school's Environment and Sanitation Club. When we caught up with them they wanted to share their thoughts about the trees with you.

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The 11 schools that were impacted by the Mobilizing, Planting, Maintaining project have seen remarkable change over the past three years because of your generous support.

The project has been hugely successful and the best part is that this is only the beginning. The trees will continue to grow and bear fruit, the PTAs will continue to advocate for quality education for all their students and the hand tools will continue to be used to bring communities' dreams to life. In short, the seeds you planted will continue to grow and blossom for generations to come. Like a tiny acorn grows into a towering oak tree, we have great expectations that the Mobilizing, Planting, Maintaining project will have a lasting impact.

From Northern Ethiopia with love and heartfelt thanks,

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