Vision21

Helping educators empower marginalized youth, particularly those disabled, with 21st century competencies: technology, mentorship, entrepreneurship and creativity.

Vision21 offers support through early childhood development education and we are a bridge between the educators and the children in high density suburbs around Mbare. Vision21 is inclusive of children marginalized due to their disabilities, improving educational equity to every child. Along with the educators, we meet learners where they are and connect them to personalized content and also match them with learners who have shared goals or interests. Once we train and mentor the high school students at Harare High School, we go out into the community and practice our skills through integration of different societies. Personalized teaching and mentorship is offered, that way catering for every child's needs and abilities. Vision21 is providing accelerated learning through community study groups and mentoring of young lives. Most teachers have been taking advantage of the poor quality of education being offered and are offering out of class extra lessons at an additional cost, leaving the students from low income families behind because they can not afford to pay for extra lessons. These study groups being lead by Vision21 will curb the loss of academic information learnt that may happen after school, also making sure that concepts which are not understood in class are revised hence making life easier for the teachers by reducing their work load. Each class has 55 students hence teachers won't have time to go back and reteach the students in the class what they would have forgotten. Under Vision21, upper level students will teach other lower level students to reinforce the knowledge learnt already. Since the current school we are working school in Zimbabwe is in our target community, we will reach our beneficiaries by being within their community and training them in their community so as to also inspire others when they see the life changing work Vision21 is doing. Out of school study groups are for every child in the communities and will be continued to ensure that if a student is not enrolled in school when the child is ready to join the main schools, they will be enrolled. Since these students lack resources such as computers in their homes and also schools, Vision21 will provide them so as to make them competent with computers. Vision21 maximizes the children's time out of school by having programs that add to their academic skills, skills such as coding which are vital in today's world. Teachers and educators are being supported in fostering innovation, creativity, critical thinking and skills-building in diverse learning environments. Since we have partnered with Harare High School, we have set up a program whereby children in the community can come and access the library as well as mentorship they need even if they are not enrolled at the school. Educating and empowering the students will benefit the students and the community as a whole and improve their capacity and generally explore ways to better their societies, leading to long term sustainability for these communities.

Our solution is innovative because we're not only focusing on children enrolled in schools, but we're reaching out to children who aren't in school and equipping them with necessary reading and writing skills. We're inclusive of children with special needs, we've been training teachers in the community with skills necessary in catering for their learning disabilities. Teachers are supported through the help we offer in training and mentoring the seniors students at Harare High School, knowledge is then passed to lower levels in schools around the community. Personalized teaching and mentorship is offered, catering for everyone's needs and abilities.

Assisting technology devices will be helpful for the educators who are working with children with special needs. The use of technological devices will boost the quality of education in these areas where the average age students are exposed to computers is 16 years. Devices encourage self-learning, reducing the amount of work teachers will to do have to do. Technology allows for globalization and this will help with our pen pal and mentoring program, the students will communicate well with their penpals and mentors from Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and USA. 

As Vision21, we believe that not everyone is academically gifted, but instead some students are talented in different things. Project based learning, having creative engineering workshops, sports days and arts expos will promote these children to be exposed to different things other than academics and will make them develop their talents hence making them sustainable. Our goal is to make teachers and educators to engage in creative ways of teaching, so that children learn faster. We also hope that we would have trained a lot of teachers on how to personalize their style of teaching to children with special needs.

Looking at Mbare, 5% of the population has families with at least one parent who has a formal job hence this also has contributed to their children lacking mentorship because they do not realize how important education is important. Most households do not afford to take their children or grandchildren to school therefore overtime we hope to establish a program where both parents and the children are invited to learn skills such as gardening, sewing, food and nutrition and carpentry hence supporting families to raise income for further support of their children. 

The current school we are working school in Zimbabwe is in our target community, we reach our beneficiaries by being within their community and training them in their community so as to inspire others when they see the life changing work Vision21 is doing. Testimonials from those whom we've helped will also create more awareness on the importance of going back to school and pursuing your talent. In Mbare, Vision21 currently trains and mentors students within the age group 13-20 therefore the trained students will them go into the nearby communities and train and mentor the younger ones and others.

Vision21 is currently serving 2049 students at Harare High school and 570 in the community. We have a mentor team available for these children. Since we started our program, the A'Level pass rate went from 93.71% to 97.44% which was a great difference for our students. Quartely, we have sports days where our students interact with other students from high-income communities. We have art expos where we have artist coming in and teach our children some basic art skills. These creative learning activities help them to identify where their talent lies and also expose them to different interests.

Our vision is also to start an exchange student program with Harare high School in Mbare, Zimbabwe and Ihala Galama in Belihuloya, Sri Lanka. By carrying out this student exchange program, it is our hope that students from both schools can learn from each other and create a network. Having an exchange program will be ground breaking for our children from low income families in two different continents. Our vision is also to partner with Jairos Jiri Association of Zimbabwe and Child Guidance Centre in Sri Lanka which both are centres that support children with special needs.

Tatanda Ndambakuwa has a degree in applied mathematics and has a lot of knowledge in GIS and coding therefore she has a network of friends in that field who have been willing to help teach our students coding. Tendayi Dzinoreva has 11 years work experience as an educator in the low-income high density suburb, therefore has a strong passion for improving the lives of these children. Yustinah Ndambakuwa has knowledge and skills in biology life sciences and also has lab experience which has helped in teaching our students different science disciplines than the ones they are used to in Zimbabwe.

We have a dedicated team of volunteers and mentors, who are always there to help and serve the children. We also have a partnership with Harare High School and they have offered their facilities to the communities for our mentorship, therefore do not have rental expenses yet. We also have a few donors whom have funded the mentorship programs we have had so far. We are positioned for long term sustainability because we are working with mentors who love what they do, hence we do not pay them anything.

Solve can advance our work by providing us with funds needed to purchase the aid devices needed as we train our teachers and educators how to care for children with special needs. The Solve team can also give us mentorship we need since we are still growing as an organization.

Our goal has been to equip our students with skills such as coding and computer literacy but since we are operating in an area which is very underprivileged, accessing computers has been a barrier. Special need education is not an area that has been given much attention in Zimbabwe hence purchasing the aid devices for our students with special needs is a big problem because we do not have any manufacturers in Zimbabwe. Solve can help by connecting Vision21 with other solver teams who know more about the best aid technology for special needs children.