The Garden Open Community School serves a local community facing the many challenges of poverty, especially the education of its children including many orphans.
Led by Sister Ireen Kapisha, BA Ed, the Garden Open Community School’s objective is to provide a safe and stimulating educational environment, and welcomes as many students as possible. Because many children arrive hungry, students benefit from the school’s feeding programme for children.
The aim of the school is to educate and help to develop the full potential of the lives of the poorest young people, especially orphans and vulnerable children who are the most disadvantaged. The school promotes the dignity and rights of students through education, including moral and spiritual development. The school also provides skills training with consideration toward health awareness, social integration, and gender equality. The student population has been growing, now totaling 1,125 children and 24 teachers.
R.E.A.L. Collaboration
The school is an active participant in the development of the R.E.A.L. programme, and contributing to the research that is needed to build the language and voice recognition libraries that R.E.A.L. requires to be effective in local communities throughout Africa.
“The ability to access a real-time digital tool that will give us a standard assessment of literacy for our children, and a deeper analysis of the status of the components of literacy, so that we can target particular learning issues amongst our children, will help us to fulfil our ambition to educate our children to the highest standards we and they can achieve.” – Sister Ireen Kapisha
