We’re excited to announce the expansion our Community-Driven Education program into Kenya! Over the course of 2019, our team will select two communities in Homa Bay County, from one of four constituencies struggling with the lowest primary school test scores in the region, and work with them to identity and implement projects that will most improve education in their schools. To help cultivate these new partnerships, we’ve hired our first facilitator in Kenya, Dora Achieng’ Okeyo, to manage community meetings.
Global Partners initiated its Community-Driven Education program in 2017, with the belief that local people know what projects will make the greatest difference in the academic achievement of their students. Through the Community Driven Education program, we partner with communities to build their capacity to identify, fund, manage, and maintain their own education projects. Community meetings facilitated by Global Partners staff build relationships between schools and local people, better the communities’ perception of the importance of education, and encourage teachers to integrate into communities. Partners are chosen through careful research on the areas with the most need in the education sector and a robust evaluation system is applied to measure the impact of this partnership model on education and social engagement outcomes.
Our first two Community-Driven Education partners – the Mughunga and Laghanida primary schools — were selected from the Singida region of Tanzania in late 2017. Mughunga Primary School is the home of 525 students and six teachers, and has a pass rate of 38.5%. Over the course of 2018, the community met with GPFD facilitators to discuss and assess the needs of the school, and ultimately ranked the shortage of classrooms as the most pressing need. Since then, the Mughunga community, in partnership with GPFD, has constructed two new classrooms and renovated existing classrooms. Laghonida Primary School has 623 students and nine teachers, and its pass rate is 40%. During meetings facilitated by Global Partners in 2018, the community identified latrines as the school’s greatest need. The Laghanida community and Global Partners has since constructed new latrines for boys, girls, and teachers as well as handwashing facilities.
We’re thrilled about the completion of projects in our first two Community-Driven Education communities and excited to share that we’ve begun work in four new schools in Tanzania. With these new Tanzanian projects and expansion into Kenya, our Community-Driven Education program is poised for a noteworthy 2019! We want to thank our staff, Board members, and generous donors for making it all possible.
