Community Impact Program

The Teach For Zimbabwe (TFZ) Community Impact (CI) initiative aimed to strengthen community caregivers involvement in supporting learning outcomes of the marginalised learners where there has been prolonged absence from school due to various reasons including COVID-19, flooded rivers and strikes. Caregivers were equipped to monitor and support children who are beyond the reach of remote digital learning. The initiative took place in the marginalised rural communities of Mutoko and Chiredzi. Learners from these communities have limited alternative learning platforms in the absence of physical classrooms. Covid 19 has seen the marginalised learners staying at home for more than five months without any formal learning except in rare circumstances where the learners had access to online learning, radio and TV lessons as well as extra lessons. The schooling disruptions negatively impact learning outcomes for the rural learners as they have shortened school attendance periods.  The CI initiative leveraged on the TFZ fellows who were already in these marginalised communities for provision of tailor-made support to caregivers as they are at different literacy levels. TFZ also worked with the school authorities in these areas as well as the community leaders. The experience advanced TFZ’s vision of collaborating with diverse stakeholders in addressing educational inequity for the marginalised learners. A total of 200 caregivers were trained during the program. The caregivers indirectly benefited with knowledge of use of digital skills as the training was conducted virtually through Zoom due to the Covid 19 imposed restrictions that prevented physical contact. The idea was to ensure that caregivers understand that that they are not only caregivers but they are teachers too hence the program was run under the theme, “I am a Caregiver, I am a Teacher too”