Higherlife foundation joins the rest of the world in commemorating World Children’s Day- a day for advocating, promoting, and celebrating children’s rights. World Children’s Day was first established in 1954 as Universal Children’s Day and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote “international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare.”
At Higherlife Foundation children are at the center of our interventions with the Foundation having been established in 1996 in response to the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic which left many children in Zimbabwe orphaned and vulnerable. We believe every child has the right to an education, and through our various education programs we ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for them to thrive in today’s world. Since 1996, we have sent over 350,000 children to school and impacted hundreds of thousands more through our various programming activities. “Through our education pillar, our work extends access to education opportunities to disadvantaged children and enhances learning for academically talented students from ECD to PhD level through scholarships, mentorship, access to digital learning platforms and educator training,” Higherlife Foundation CEO, Dr Kennedy Mubaiwa.
“For us, education is as an effective tool to catalyse the transformation of individuals to achieve their God-given purpose,” he added.
As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted children’s lives and traditional learning delivery models, Higherlife developed initiatives to ensure children continued learning. In 2020, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education publicly endorsed usage of the Foundation’s interactive digital platform Ruzivo, which is now known as Akello Smart Learning, as a learning tool that students in Zimbabwe could use as they learnt from home. During this period, a total of 38,818 active users made use of the Ruzivo platform, with 94,214 learners accessing the content on the platform. To combat some of these challenges brought on by the pandemic for early learners, Higherlife Foundation (HLF) in collaboration with Simba Education designed the Growing Tree foundational phase learning program to improve the learning outcomes of foundational phase learners in a crisis period.
Looking ahead the Foundation will continue to empower children through education and its various programming initiatives. Learn more about our education programs here
