TERM 1 2025 NEWSLETTER

A-Level Students – welcome Lower Sixes!

We have enjoyed a wonderful term as we welcomed 17 Lower Sixth students. 10 Residential students, 7 Non-residential students and 2 students who are boarders at Watershed College. We are excited to welcome St Johns College as a Makomborero partner school and grateful to have one residential student who has just started his A-Level there.

Both Residential and Non-Residential students had their eye tests thanks to a local optician. Residential students had their medical tests thanks to a local doctor. We were able to equip Non-Residential students with solar lights for studying through the long power cuts and tablets with pre-loaded study materials. All students were given stationery, backpacks, lunch boxes and water bottles. Boarders were given tuck for the term and food trunks and travel bags. A manic time for staff and students and a reflection of just how far your donations stretch particularly in those preparation stages! It’s been a real pleasure getting to know all our new students! They have done a great job of getting to grips with a very busy term.

At their schools, both residential and non-residential students have been introduced to new clubs and activities which they have enjoyed and excelled in with some winning awards!
All our A-Level students have had Group Therapy session this term. While our Upper Sixth students have had a year of engaging in group therapy, Lower Sixes are completely new to this and we are pleased to hear they are finding the sessions very beneficial. We had a total of 9 English lessons this term and most students have said that they found these highly beneficial. Mrs A continues to run weekly Life Skills sessions for Residential students and Mr Mahz runs Life Skills sessions for Non-Residential students.

Pictured here are Happy Bakers in the boarding house!!!  Getting ready for Saturday night Toastmasters.

Celebrating Class of 2024

What a joy to be able to celebrate the achievements of Class of 2024.
Their A-Level results were as follows!

• Our 9 A-Level Cambridge students had a collective of:

11A*s  15As and 7Bs

• Our 4 A-Level ZIMSEC students had a collective of:

7As and 4Bs

We are also very proud of our 11 Lower Sixth Cambridge students who collectively had the following AS Level results:
27As 10Bs and 2Cs

Well done to our 19  Lower Sixth students who had a collective of the following results at O-Level:

• 179As and 31 Bs (ZIMSEC)
• 4A*s 2As and 2Bs (Cambridge)

 Special mention goes to:

• Takudzwa, outgoing Upper Sixth who was at Hellenic Academy, acihieved 4A* at A-Level (Cambridge)
• Makanaka, incoming Lower Sixth student who attended St Davids Girls High Bonda and achieved 14As for O-Level (ZIMSEC)

 

University students

We are proud of all our students studying at universities around the world. Local University of Zimbabwe students were back to lectures in February and this inevitably meant a lot of exams.
Doctors in Part 4 have started clinic rotations and endured some sleepless nights at local hospitals – well done to them!
Our university residence continues to serve 17 busy students with a safe home that has all the essentials including solar power and borehole water. The morning university run in our mini bus continues to work well.

Introducing 3D printing

During the third term of last year, we had a visit from a group of Finnish teachers and students and they very generously donated a 3D printer to Makomborero.
We are so excited to let you know that we have started holding 3D printing sessions at our Mobile Science Lab and these have been greatly welcome by the students there who are aged 14-16. Their first project was printing a pencil and eraser holder and we look forward to seeing many more designs from these wonderful minds! A huge thank you to Anna and her team for such a life-changing donation.

Annual Supporter’s Evening

Our Annual Supporters Evening was held earlier this year on the 3^rd of April in London, England. It was an intimate evening well-atended by both past students and supporters.
The audience enjoyed the opportunity to hear about news on the ground in Zimbabwe from Co-Founder Laura Albertyn. Apart from sharing recent achievements and current news, she was also able to talk a little into Makomborero’s vision for the future. Thank you to all who were able to attend!

Other Projects

Mutsidzira – Two Mutsidzira projects are currently doing well with one project having held fantastic business training sessions for university students and another training young people to make ethnic jewellery in schools.

Ndeipi! – Ndeipi! held its first session for 2025 in March with 17 participants. The participants are made up of parents, guardians and relatives of scholarship recipients, Girl Child mentees and Mobile Science Lab students. This year we also have a past student as a participant! We look forward to all the inspiring stories to come out of this wonderful project.

Girl Child – We have 30 mentees from 3 different schools this year. They are lively and eager to get engaged. Our team of 15 dedicated mentors has done a great job of getting to know them over the 7 sessions held this term and we are so grateful to them for volunteering their time. The end of term lunch was full of delicious food, games and inspiring teaching from Mrs A.
Thanks to a UK donor, mentees walked away with bags that contained soap, a colouring book, beautiful stationery and some lip gloss. We managed to add face towels and sanitary pants to the bags thanks to local Zimbabwean donors.
We are so excited for the year-long journey of hope that we are embarking on with these wonderful mentees.

Mobile Science Lab – The Mobile Science Lab has run an impactful 5 days of sessions this term for a total of 15 students. They managed to fit in two sessions per day to maximise the time.
Food Testing was a winner during the  Biology sessions and the Electricity session had young inquisitive minds ticking! The icing on the cake was the introduction of 3D sessions.
We are so proud of all that the teachers Nyasha and Shawn and all the students have achieved. Their final day of the term was full of games and eats and each student got to take home a 3D printed pencil and eraser holder.

Round Up

Apart from Lower Sixes, we have also welcomed two new Gap Year students, Blessing and Tawanda. We are enjoying having them on team and seeing them grow into their roles.
We have had some wonderful rains this year and coming out of the 2024 drought, we are relieved. However, water tables have not risen enough to sustain us through the year particularly at the A-Level boarding house and this has posed a challenge for us. As we gear up for Term 2, we reflect on this joyful term we have had and are filled with gratitude for all of you our sponsors and donors who have made the most minute details of this term possible.

 

Thank you to all our partner schools and  government schools for all the work you do to educate and change the lives of our students.