AWALI Funding
Preamble to AKU-IED’s EA Capacity Building
Over the last decade, AKU-IED, EA has built upon the investment by the Awali Group by leveraging additional support from various foundations and donors, including the World Bank, Global Affairs Canada (GAC), Dubai Cares, Economic and Social Research Council UK (ESRC), Porticus Africa, Canada Africa Research Grant and the Firelight Foundation. Together, they have impacted thousands of teachers, educators as well as school administrators, and have improved educational standards and the student learning experience across East Africa.
The AWALI Funding
In 2010, the Awali Group contributed C$2.09 million, to support AKU-IED’s EA collaborative partnership with the Room to Read Foundation (RtR). Known as Awali Reads, it targeted literacy intervention to improve the education outcomes of rural Tanzanian children by enabling the Institute to provide teacher and leadership training to help them develop basic literacy skills in their students while RtR focused on improving school environments, publishing children’s books and materials in local languages, establishing school libraries and improving school infrastructure to support learning.
RtR’s Reading & Writing Instruction programme was focused on discovering, cultivating and training emerging or established local illustrators and authors in Tanzania so they could become the ‘Dr. Seuss’ of the developing world. In the process, RtR published 13 new children’s books (7,000 prints) that dealt with important global themes such as the environment, gender equality, and dealing with HIV/AIDS to increase awareness about these issues within the context of Tanzania. The books also included discussion questions, important vocabulary words, or activity pages to help the teacher extend the story and integrate it into areas of the curriculum such as social studies, science or math.
AKU-IED’s EA renowned teacher training program supplemented RtR’s efforts resulting in 815 head teachers, deputy head teachers, librarians, ward education officers and parents, completing their training. In addition, a total of 309 in-service educators and administrators participated in short courses related to pedagogical leadership and material development, teaching literacy, development and assessment. The pipeline of motivated teachers resulted in 8 full scholarships being offered for the Master’s degree programme at AKU-IED, EA.
The University also supported the creation of 16 new classroom libraries and an additional 17 libraries were repaired with the support of the local government in Mvomero district and individual communities served, providing children with books that will inspire them to read, expand their minds, and develop a lifelong love for reading and learning.
Today, the facilities and schools that were rehabilitated through this partnership have been handed to the Teachers Resource Centre in Tanzania.
