This week, I am bringing you a profile from one of our literacy teachers at Mnyaula Primary School. Earlier this year, we wrote about an innovative new phonics project we piloted at two of our schools. Today, I’d like you to meet Changwe Banda!
Read MoreThis week we have re-opened our classroom doors to all students and grade levels after nearly 10 weeks of closure. With this second COVID shutdowns now behind us, I have been reflecting on how different the two events and our responses have been.
Read MoreWell, helped enormously by the time difference, I was able to stay up late tonight and watch on Facebook Live as the Electoral Commission of Zambia announced the final constituencies and tallies for the Presidential election held on Thursday, August 12th.
Read MoreOur upcycling project is aimed at creating something new and useful from discarded materials by repairing, refurbishing or repurposing them. The objective of this project is to find new ways to creatively re-use and repurpose materials that we would otherwise be dispose of in rubbish pits that are typically burned.
Read MoreSeven years ago this month, Sydney Siame became the first Zambian to win a gold medal at the 100m sprint during the Youth Olympic Games in China. With a time of just 10.56 seconds, at 16 years old, he finished just one hundredth of a second ahead of the second place winner – proving just how tight this race was!
Read MoreThe Washington Post recently had this article showcasing the women athletes at the Olympics this year. For me, it was an incredible reminder of the ways in which our world has grown to include athletes who are mothers – and the ways it hasn’t.
Read MoreI hope folks are staying cool (in the US!) and warm (in Zambia!). Last week, Zaila Avant-garde became the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in its 100-year history.
Read MoreWhile this year’s Olympics certainly look very different, they will be upon us in just two weeks. Pretty much every time I think of the Olympics, I remember the story about a town called Bekoji, in Ethiopia. Bekoji has been the home of seven Olympic medal-winning runners.* Among them they have won SIXTEEN Olympic medals, 10 of them gold. To help you realize how remarkable that is – this small town of 17,000 people has brought in more gold medals than India (a population of 1.2 billion) has won in all of the summer categories put together.
Read MoreI recently re-watched a TED talk by a young entrepreneur, Maya Penn. Penn is a 21-year-old “entrepreneur, philanthropist, designer, artist, animator, illustrator, and writer.” At age 4, her father had shown her how to take a computer apart, and put it back together. At age 8, she started a company called Maya’s Ideas, an eco-friendly, environmentally sustainable, fashionable accessories and clothing line.
Read MoreThis week, Zambia said goodbye to its first president, Kenneth Kaunda. On October 24th, 1964, the Zambia Independence Act of 1964 went into effect, granting independence to Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), and Kaunda was elected soon after.
Read MoreThis weekend I attended a celebration for my 5-year-old who is finishing up her years at a Montessori program before heading to kindergarten next year. It made me reflect on where we were a year ago and how far we have come thanks to the work of so many teachers, school staff and parents around the world.
Read MoreThis weekend, I read my kids a short story about Oprah Winfrey – one that taught me more about the woman behind the legendary television producer and host. I grew up with The Oprah Winfrey Show – broadcast from Chicago, and the highest-rated television show of its kind.
Read MoreLast week, famed author and illustrator, Eric Carle, died in his studio at the age of 91. Carle is most known for his legendary children’s books, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar which has sold more than 55 million copies to date. I have read his books countless times to my own children; Carle had a way of creating simple, memorable stories about living things, and capturing their beauty with his colorful illustrations.
Read MoreA few years ago, I shared a story about a remarkable then third-grader – Tanitoluwa Adewumi. At the time, Adewumi was an 8-year-old, who arrived to New York City, after fleeing Nigeria. He had just won his age group at the New York State chess championship. His story is one of those ones that gets highlighted in press because he has succeeded against all odds.
Read MoreAcross Zambia, students in lower primary grades (first through fourth) are struggling to catch up from the closures due to COVID-19. But even before the pandemic, more than half of students in grades three to five struggled to read basic words. While the reasons for this are systemic and multi-fold, and schools supported by Impact Network have been shown to perform better than other community schools, we continue to pilot new programs to help our most marginalized populations catch-up.
Read MoreLast month, Jane Goodall – the British primatologist, anthropologist and UN Messenger of Peace – celebrated her 87th birthday. Goodall was born in London, and had a fascination with animals from a very young age.
Read MoreLast month, baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, and every Major League Baseball player donned a No. 42 jersey in his honor. It marks the anniversary of when Jackie Robinson broke the color line and became a starter for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Read MoreLast week, the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines reached Zambia and vaccination efforts started in full swing. It also marked my own first dose, taken at the Javits Center – a site typically used for conventions and conferences and now serving to protect 10,000 New Yorkers a day.
Read MoreLike many sporting events over the last year, the NetGirls Zambia league did not shoot any balls into village hoops for points and there was no league champion. While this is an unfortunate consequence of the pandemic, all was not lost! True to the aim of the program – “to empower and improve the lives of girls by providing opportunity for growth” – the team was able to pivot into other beneficial projects for women and girls.
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