I can’t help but start this Newsletter with a little personal news!! Since we last wrote, we have become parents – to a wonderful little boy called Matthew Tinashe! It has been a true privilege to start this new season of life as parents and we feel incredibly blessed! He was born in January!!
I write this newsletter with a heavy heart at the current political problems Zimbabwe is facing and the suffering that fellow Zimbabweans are experiencing. This makes Laura and I more determined to see our vision come to fruition! Please stand with us as we continue to pray and trust God for a miracle in this nation!
We thought this would be a good opportunity to share the exciting developments of Makomborero Zimbabwe with you.
Firstly, we received the A-level results of the students who attended the Revision School in August last year. It was so encouraging to see so many of them pass in the subjects that they were tutored in and we felt so thrilled that the week of revision with them had affected their academic work in some way. We know that for there to have been a greater impact academically we needed more time but we know that this has at least aided them in obtaining passes. We wish them all well.
Secondly, we wanted to share the developments of Makomborero Zimbabwe. We have been approached by a small rural mining town (platinum mine) to set up an A-level centre attached to the local senior school. I went out to Zimbabwe in May to investigate this option and see if this was what our next step should be. The town is called Turf, two hours drive outside of Harare. I had a look around the existing high school and was shown where the Sixth Form centre would initially be set up. I returned from Zimbabwe very excited by this prospect. The School will start in January 2009 and we look to join the School fulltime within the next few years. We will be very much involved in the running of the School and the funding. Here are a few pictures to give you a feel for the place!! We will continue to pursue starting an A-level centre in Hatcliffe Extension, as we feel this is where we will move onto once we have established the A-level centre in Turf. Once we move back to Zimbabwe, we see ourselves at Turf for just over two years and really are looking forward to not only starting a school but starting a few community based projects and working with the local church.
On the back of this we ran a much smaller revision school at Turf during August 2008. This was for GCSE students writing their examinations in October, hoping to gain a place at the Sixth Form Centre. Unfortunately, I was not personally able to attend the revision school but have assisted with sending out textbooks, calculators, posters etc. It was a huge success – the teachers who volunteered their time where amazing and showed the pupils that people still care about them and their futures!! We want to say a big thank you to all who organised and ran this successful revision school.
We also received incredible support from the pupils of Benenden School who have held various fundraising events to raise money and collect textbooks for the revision school. The A-level Mathematics classes also made posters and resources for the classrooms at Turf and ran a number of fundraising events. Thanks to all of them for their support and passion for this!
So as you can see, the ball is beginning to roll and Laura and I are so excited by these developments, if not a little daunted by it too but that is all part of this adventure!
Thank you for your continued support of us!
We would like to thank Oxford University Press for their continued support through various donations of textbooks over the last few months.
Written by: Laura Albertyn
