Q2 2023 Newsletter: Fostering a Growth Mindset in Our Students
🔎In this newsletter
Highlights
Georgina & Claudia visit Zimbabwe
25 students complete Python coding and Leadership Skills courses
Ipsos and Intrasonics refurbish and ship 30 laptops to Zimbabwe, Systemiq donate 6
Spotlight on:
Our top donors this past year
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
ZOFunteer of the month Claudia Zeibe
Far & Wide Cricket
Financials & impact
$12,110 spent on programs in the first half of 2023
Impact
Asks:
🚀 Highlights
💻 💪 We funded 25 ambitious high school students from low-income backgrounds to complete our 21st Century Skills course, including:
An intensive 25h Python coding course, facilitated by The Maker Club and Miracle Missions Vimba
6 hours of Leadership Skills Development facilitated by Envision Consultants and Miracle Missions Vimba
Total cost: US$6,500 ($260/student)
🤝 Georgina and Claudia visited Harare to meet our partners, students, and prospective student employers
Claudia and Georgina meet with student career coach Joy Mahobele
Juma, Claudia and Georgina (not pictured) meet with Simba to discuss how The Maker Club can scale its courses to other low-income students
💼 Their trip focused on how ZOF Africa can bridge students to the workforce. Equipping them with a growth mindset is paramount, and they need to flex their entrepreneurial muscles so that they can create jobs for themselves in an economy with such scarce job availability.
🚀 Our partners have successfully nurtured a growth mindset among our students. In Zimbabwe, Georgina personally interviewed the 25 students we recently sponsored, who reported learning…:
“…I can achieve anything I set my mind to.” – Priscilla
“The value of perseverance” – Amos
“The importance of persistence, curiosity, and hard work in achieving goals” - Nikel
The students' caregivers have observed a positive change in attitude, noting that their children are now more punctual, attentive, mature, and disciplined.
👩🎓🥇Teachers acknowledged the program's positive impact on students' math skills and their overall participation in class. The coding program enhanced performance in class, and students exhibited greater confidence and active participation in classroom activities.
🧑💻 All students expressed concern about forgetting the valuable Coding skills they learned. To address this, we are providing them with 10 laptops, which will be kept at a small private school in Hatcliffe where they live. The students will be able to access the laptops every Saturday to continue their learning with The Maker Club.
✨ They were very enthusiastic about the Leadership Skills they learned about and developed with career coach Joy Mahobele, and many reported a positive influence on academic performance and self-confidence.
👩🎓 We plan to repeat this course with another 80-100 students this year. The average cost per student for the 21st Century Skills scholarship is $250. We are grateful to Systemiq and Ipsos for their used laptop donations that make these courses possible.
Georgina meets students in Hatcliffe who took the Python coding course and career coaching sessions funded by ZOF Africa
Georgina and ZOF partner Miracle Missions Vimba visit students who took the April Python coding course
Tea with some of ZOF Africa's partners and their families
Meeting with Econet, the leading Zimbabwean telecoms provider, to discuss professional opportunities for students in Zimbabwe
✨ Spotlight on
Our large donors since 2022:
Platinum donors:
ABC Foundation ($15,000 over 3 years)
Susan Fine ($10,000)
Capital Group employees, who have collectively gifted over $8,500
Gold donors:
Mary & David Morrison ($5,200)
Neil & Nancy Janin (£2,000)
Joe Thornton ($2,000)
Coldplay (gifted tickets raised £3,500)
Silver donors:
Charles Fleming (£1400)
Christopher Fleming (£1,000)
Jeremy Oppenheim (£1,000)
Bronze:
Mary Stokes (£500)
Juergen Rueckel (EUR500)
Anne Caspi (£375)
Julie Forth (£200)
Tanmay Degwekar & Sugandha Virmani (£200)
🤝 Partner of the year: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, whose representatives Chris Moore, Byron Spring, Katherine Hughes, Courtney Sugden Butler, and Courtenay Stock (now at Kirkland & Ellis) were instrumental in registering ZOF Africa as a UK charity, updating ZOF Africa’s USA charitable status, and hosting its launch event in London last year.
🙋♀️ Volunteer of the month: Claudia Zeibe
Claudia has professionalised ZOF Africa by setting up our governance systems and running fundraisers. She volunteers from London, where she works as an international lawyer in the financial services industry. Claudia cherishes her engagement with the youths we support and our local partners, whom she connected with in person during her recent trip to Zimbabwe. Whilst there, she also befriended a couple of hippos!
ZOF Africa supports launch of Far & Wide Cricket Zimbabwe
Far & Wide Cricket was set up last year by Ritesh Patel and Darshana Ramji to teach cricket to low-income Zimbabwean youths. ZOF Africa facilitated donations for its donors by providing our payments infrastructure. As with all sports played in a disciplined environment, cricket is a tool to help fight broader social issues by promoting collaboration & problem solving skills through physical activity. Since December they have sponsored more than 250 children over three camp days. On the back of their success, they will be filing for UK charitable status. Find out more at www.farandwidecricket.com and on Instagram.
📈 Financial Update - YTD
All figures are for H1 2023
Total raised - $23,240
USA: $15,425
UK: £6,525
Total spent on programs - $12,206
USA: $3,203
UK: £6,857
Admin expenses - $985
USA: $406
UK: £750
Finance expenses - $108
USA: $126
UK: £82
Impact
👨💻 25 students from low-income backgrounds received training in Python coding and in Leadership Skills development. These have improved self-confidence and performance in Maths at school for several students.
💻 The same 25 students will continue their digital learning every Saturday thanks to 10 laptops donated to their local school
📜 All students received certificates of attendance; some with distinctions in:
🔍 Problem solving (assessed via the psychometric test Raven’s Progressive Matrices)
📚 Course work (assessed via their grades on coding course assignments)
🛰️6 students growing up in a children’s home attended intermediate drone engineering & piloting course
💬 Asks
🎪 Join us for ZimFest just outside London on Saturday July 29th! This is a festival dedicated entirely to Zimbabwean culture. ZOF Africa will have a stand. Event details here.
💻 Ask your company if they can donate their used laptops to ZOF Africa
📱 Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn where we post regular updates