Three things and one hope...

I hope everyone is having a great week! As I shared earlier this month, Impact Network and PEAS are joining forces – in pursuit of a vision where all students are given the tools they need to reach their full potential. In January, Impact Network’s primary schools in rural Zambia will merge with PEAS, and we will be working in close collaboration with PEAS to support this joint entity. We are thrilled that as a merged organization, we will reach 200,000 of the poorest students in 376 schools across Zambia, Uganda, and Ghana every year!

I also shared that I will be stepping back from the day-to-day management of the organization. After more than a decade at the helm, and with the milestone of this transformative merger, now feels like the right time for this transition. Katie Kerr, who has been side-by-side with me as our VP of External Relations for 7 years, will be taking on the leadership of the US office and strategy. Our colleagues in Zambia will be reporting in to PEAS’s amazing country director, Beatrice Likando. I have also taken a seat on the PEAS Board to help steward the merged entity towards success.

And so, I find myself after more than a decade, writing my last email to this group. This weekly email started as a little experiment – inspired by my cousin-sister, Shradha, and encouraged by a mentor of mine, Patti. At the time, I thought that sharing our triumphs with a small group of supporters and team members could help foster a sense of accomplishment with our team (and myself!). Over time, it’s grown into its own thing – a time where I could share success stories from our schools, my dreams for our programs, personal stories of what I have learned, and so much more.

And so, in the spirit of the “three things” that I often share at the end of my emails, I wanted to share three things I’ve learned and one hope for the future.

⏱️Optimizing the time you spend isn’t the most important thing. Almost all of my work experience before Impact Network had solidified in me a belief that I should always be maximizing efficiency. And while I still believe this is important, I have also learned that it can’t be the basis for all decisions. My Zambian colleagues in particular, have always encouraged authentic consensus-building. Sometimes, it meant that we spent a long time discussing our viewpoints on a relatively minor policy point. Oftentimes, it meant that we had to have really difficult discussions on how to handle an issue at a school. More than once, I would find myself in those early days, wondering if this was the *best* use of everyone’s time. But over time, I have come to appreciate how much trust those conversations created. And almost always, we actually did come to a consensus, where we disagreed in the beginning.

🤝Collaborate instead of compete. Impact Network and PEAS are part of a small group of NGOs that work in education in Zambia, and an even smaller group that work in rural schools. These similarities lend us to be competitors – yes – but it also led us to be sounding boards to one another. I met Laura Brown, the CEO of PEAS, at a Global Schools Forum event back in 2018, when we joined the same challenge carousel. And over the years since that first meeting, we reached out to each other when we were facing a challenge, when we were struggling with something, or when we wanted to bounce ideas off each other. And it is that relationship that we then leveraged into a bigger collaboration across our organizations. This merger meant both organizations had to exercise some real humility – and to live this value in each of our interactions.

⚖️Do the next right thing. In general, especially as Impact Network has grown over the years, I have found myself feeling a bit of imposter syndrome, or self-doubt. As a leader of an organization you are tasked with making difficult choices and decisions daily and I have often found my inner critic asking “who am I to try this”. It wasn’t until my kids went through a phase of watching Frozen 2 over and over that I paid attention to a song called The Next Right Thing. It’s embarrassing, but this became a little bit of a mantra for me over the last few years. Sometimes the challenges we face can be too big or daunting if you consider it in totality. And so, when I’m feeling that bit of imposter syndrome, I just force myself to do the next right thing.

🌱My hope for the future is simple: I believe that every child deserves access to a quality education. Last year, 93% of Impact Network’s seventh graders passed their end-of-primary exams and had an opportunity to continue on to secondary school. But up until now, the secondary schools in the areas that we work are sometimes ranked last in the district. In January, PEAS will open its doors to its first secondary school in Eastern Province – located in Sinda, the midpoint of all of the districts that we serve. My hope is that with this merger, we can continue to provide our students with a world-class education.

As we look forward to 2025, you can expect to hear from my amazing colleague, Katie, starting in 2025, every two weeks. Katie will be taking the lead in sharing updates, news, and reflections on the incredible work happening across all of our programs. Her deep knowledge of the organization, dedication to our mission, and passion for making a difference make her the perfect person to carry this forward. To our incredible management team, our teachers, and our families: thank you for believing in me and trusting me over the years. Your support and partnership have been the foundation of everything we’ve achieved together. I am so excited to see how the work will grow and evolve in this next chapter!

Zikomo Kwambiri (thank you very much),

Reshma