Through our impact of the S.H.E Programme, we are able to transform our beneficiaries from vulnerable to empowered, by removing all barriers that they used to face, before receiving our tailored, holistic support.
Our Impact Stories, outlining some of our impact made to date:
Meet Cheyenne
Beneficiary from Zambia
Meet Cheyenne
When Cheyenne was in her early teens, she dropped out of school, due to her family being unable to afford to send her to school, especially after her father was injured in an accident and unable to work to earn an income. This resulted in Cheyenne being married off at a very young age.
Once married, Cheyenne gave birth to two beautiful sons.
Sadly in 2022, now at the age of 25 years old, her husband passed away and because of this, she had no means to survive and be able to look after her two sons. Cheyenne decided to approach her parents and request to move back in with them. Despite living back with her parents, their financial situation had not improved whilst she was away, thus, they were unable to fully support her and help her to look after her two sons.
Cheyenne decided to seek various piece jobs in the local community, to earn a living to put her sons through school. Towards the end of 2022, Cheyenne made the decision that she wanted to go back to school, as she was passionate about becoming educated which she hoped would bring about opportunities later for her to improve her family’s difficult situation. She worked day and night to earn enough money to put herself through school, and at the start of 2023, she was enrolled at the same school that her two sons are at.
Now at the age of 26 years old, Cheyenne is in Grade 8 and is amongst other students in her grade who are 13 to 14 years old. She has succumbed to bullying from other students at her school, due to her age. However, this did not discourage Cheyenne at all. Her bravery and determination to return to school and complete her education to better her family’s life is what led us to make the decision for her to become a beneficiary of the Catalyst Foundation – S.H.E Programme in Zambia.
We look forward to witnessing Cheyenne’s transformation as she progresses through the Programme, and for her to be a positive role model (big sister) to our younger beneficiaries at her school, where she will have the opportunity to support them and help them understand the importance of having goals in life and completing their education – not adding to the statistics of early child pregnancies, but instead, helping to reduce the numbers.
Meet Mary and Tafadzwa
Beneficiaries from Zimbabwe
Mary and Tafadzwa both live in the Beatrice district in Zimbabwe and come from families of extreme poverty, where many barriers prevented them from not being able to go to school. They joined the S.H.E Programme in 2021 and through the holistic support that they received from the Catalyst Foundation, Mary and Tafadzwa were able to continue their education and begin their journey of becoming empowered young women.
As these two beneficiaries progressed through the Programme, we noticed that their academic grades were at a steady decline, as well as their participation in class. Many interventions were taken by their teachers, but nothing seemed to work.
During our routine health check examinations, we partnered with two local nurses form the area, who carried out hearing test examinations on Mary and Tafadzwa. Once the results were completed and analyzed, the nurses noticed that they might have hearing difficulties, and referred our beneficiaries to an Audiologist. After more tests were carried out, the Audiologist concluded that Mary and Tafadzwa had moderate to major hearing challenges, and without any support for this, they were going to lose their hearing ability over time.
The Catalyst Foundation were able to step in and offer this support to our beneficiaries by purchasing hearing aids for them and assisting with any other support that they needed. Through this intervention, Mary and Tafadzwa can now hear a lot better, their quality of life has improved drastically, and a huge improvement has been seen by their teachers at school, due to the progress that they have both made so far.
Nyasha’s Grandmother working in her fields where various vegetable plants were being grown.
Assisting Gire’s Caregiver with her Sustainable Project in Zimbabwe.
Gire is one of our beneficiary’s from Beatrice in Zimbabwe. Sadly both her parents passed away when she was young and she had no one else to support her. A nearby neighbour, an elderly woman whose husband had recently passed away, decided to adopt orphaned children in her local area and support them. When Gire joined the S.H.E Programme in 2022, her caregiver was looking after sixteen young children. After meeting this elderly woman and learning more about her background, we found out that she has begun a farming project, where she grew various vegetables to sell to earn an income to be able to support her large family.
Gire’s caregiver mentioned to us that the previous harvest season, she was able to accumulate five tonnes of maize, by herself with no other help, that she managed to sell, which assisted her in receiving enough funds to start building her new house that will be able to accommodate her entire family. We were truly inspired by her story and seeing her determination to provide the world for her family made us decide to fully support her with her farming efforts and ensure that the is fully sustained.
After chatting further to Gire’s caregiver, she told us that her only source of water for her vegetables, was provided to her by a nearby well, as there were no nearby dams or rivers that should could use to collect water. Unfortunately, this well had dried up and she requested for support from the Catalyst Foundation to help her dig a deeper well, in order for her to be fully sustainable and be able to continue her farming project. We were able to go above and beyond and offered her support that will ensure that she will never have to worry about running out of water again.
Since offering this support, Gire’s caregiver’s farming efforts have increased greatly and she is now able to continue building her new house.
Inspired to donate towards our ‘Family Sustainable Projects’
Meet Mary and Tafadzwa
School Feeding Programmes initiated at all ten schools in Zimbabwe whom we support.
With us providing nutritious food hampers to all of our beneficiaries, we noticed a great improvement in their lives, as many of them who were diagnosed with severe malnutrition at the start of the Programme, and with us providing this support to them, they were later cleared and deemed healthy. In addition to this impact, they now had the energy to fully focus on their education, where we noticed great progress being made in their academic results.
However, it was noticed that a large number of the schools’ students who were not part of the S.H.E Programme, were suffering greatly from hunger and this resulted in there being high statistics of school drop outs and students being unable to physically walk the long distances to walk to school every day, due to their lack of access to adequate food supplies. For those students who were able to journey to school, in class, they were unable to concentrate and absorb everything that they had learnt, and then after their journey back home, they were unable to then complete their homework, due to not having enough food within their bodies to sustain them.
In response to all of these issues identified, we decided to implement daily ‘School Feeding Programmes’ in all schools whom we work with, as part of our additional support that we offer to them. Once this initiative was established, the impact created was absolutely amazing. All students (boys and girls) were able to receive a healthy meal every day and this reduced the school dropout rates by nearly 80%, with student attendances greatly improving. The vast majority of students who suffered from malnutrition soon transformed into healthy individuals, and as a result of this support – academic progress from all students improved significantly as well.
Inspired to donate towards our ‘School Feeding Programmes’
Donation of Laptops to Chihoro Primary School, Beatrice, Zimbabwe.
Over the years, the use of technology, in particular computers and laptops within schools, has increased significantly worldwide, as these devices have been proven to benefit students’ in numerous ways. The schools that the Catalyst Foundation – S.H.E Programme support in Zimbabwe unfortunately do not have the privilege of having technological devices, such as computers or laptops available for their students to use, due to them being extremely under-resourced and funded. As a result of this, the students and our beneficiaries at these schools are unable to:
- conduct academic research,
- benefit from additional online learning resources,
- gain the practical knowledge of ICT,
- be able to gain exposure to what is happening on a global scale,
- improve their English proficiency through watching educational videos, along with many more challenges that they face.
Through the support of various individuals and the Catalyst Foundation, we were able to donate laptops to Chihoro Primary School. The impact that this donation has made so far has been incredible, and we look forward to continuing this support until all schools part of the S.H.E Programme have enough computers or laptops to benefit all students
Inspired to donate towards our ‘Improving the Resources’ at the schools that we support, click here to make your impact.
Educating the Ringa Primary School Community (Beatrice, Zimbabwe) about protecting the environment and climate change.
Conservation of the environment is really important to us and we promote this in the schools we work with in various ways which include, holding discussion sessions with all students about the need to protect the environment, how to carry this out and what could be done to ensure that they are playing their part.
We were able to visit Ringa Primary School in Beatrice, Zimbabwe, where we donated numerous fruit tree seedlings to them. Great educational discussions were carried out between us and the entire school community about how they could ensure that these seedlings grow into trees that will be able to produce fruit for them to use as part of their ‘School’s Feeding Programme.’
Inspired to donate towards our ‘Environment Protection and Climate Change Initiative’, click here to make your impact.