Rays of Hope is an organization that seeks to improve learning outcomes of disadvantaged children by providing educational support and empowering teachers with hands-on technical skills. They improve learning outcomes in primary schools by equipping teachers with innovative pedagogical methods to create content-rich & creative lessons. Their educational approach includes running remedial lessons for disadvantaged learners in public primary schools, providing bursaries to increase access to secondary school education, and linking both high-school dropouts and graduates to entrepreneurial opportunities and micro-loans. They are uniquely equipped to provide large scale training initiatives in Malawi.
- Malawi
- Education, Teacher Training, and Vocational Training
- 85% of the targeted teachers across 100 primary schools demonstrated mastery of lesson content
- 85% pass rate among the targeted primary school learners on national standardized exams in 2020
- 13,000 students across 30 schools saw 15% improvement in academic performance after accessing workbooks provided by RoH to accelerate learning in rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2,000 teachers currently enrolled in RoH’s network across 4 districts
- 800 learners enrolled in RoH afterschool programs across 10 different primary schools
- 55 vocational students accessed 20 sessions on business and entrepreneurship in 2019
- Rays of Hope’s system change work aims at demonstrating the value addition of creating ‘communities of practice’ in in-service teacher education.
- Supporting teacher networks in 5 education districts and collaborating with the Directorate of Teacher Education and Development, in the Ministry of Education, on in-service teacher education.
Willie Mpasuka
Willie Mpasuka grew up in the city slums of Malawi where lack of basic resources affected his academic performance in school. With the help of his community, and despite circumstances, Willie was able to become the first in his family to reach a university-level education. He is a 2008-2009 Urban Promise International Fellow, 2017 African Visionary Fellow, the 2018 Praxis Fellow, a founding member of the Global Alliance for Communities, and received the 2018 Rising Star Award from the Segal Family Foundation.
Transformation is intentional! Teachers’ skill-strengthening will not just happen without investing real resources - that is why we exist. If we invest in in-service teachers, we are curating transformational knowledge for the benefit of countless students who are at the jaws of systemic injustice. Incomplete stories invoke impatience.
