Story summary

Kiru Wakele, 35, is a teacher at Abobo Full Cycle Primary School in the Abobo district of the Gambella region in Ethiopia. She has been teaching mathematics and Agnoac Language to students from grades 1–4 for the last seven years. Save the Children trained Kiru and other teachers in the school on literacy and numeracy boost methodologies that enabled her to develop useful skills to help children learn how to read and write as well as understand numbers. She honed her skills in engaging young learners in the practical learning required to lay a solid foundation for success. 

Strong quotes: 

“Save the Children has established reading corners at school and supplied us with storybooks that helps children improve their reading and writing skills”  

“My heart is filled with joy when I witness young children begin to read and recognize the letters.  I wake up in the morning and go to school every day because of this”.

How is Save the Children helping (or did we help) that child or family: 

·Save the Children built and furnished additional classrooms in more  than 21 primary schools that

·Save the Children provided children with different learning materials that enabled children continue their education. 

·Save the Children has been collaborating closely with the regional and woreda education offices to support schools in delivering high-quality instruction by offering methodological training in literacy and numeracy to primary school teachers and providing them with additional reading materials.

Kiru’s story in her own words (Quotes): 

I am Kiru, and I have been teaching arithmetic and Agnoac language to pupils in grades one through four at Abobo Full-Cycle Primary School for the past seven years. I love my job as a teacher, and I do it with passion. My heart is filled with joy when I witness young children begin to read and recognize the letters.  I wake up in the morning and go to school every day because of this.

Last year in April, along with two other teachers from this school, I was selected and attended a three-day training on how to teach children with basic literacy and numeracy skills by Save the Children in Pugnado.

With the knowledge I acquired from the training, I am able to engage my students in play-based learning. With these new methods, they do not get bored, and they love their language and math lessons in class. They also understand the meaning of words they read much better.

The games and creative activities I use in class make math fun for children. Before this project, many children struggled to learn mathematics, and most of them scored very low in their exams. "Now, I could say there is at least a 50-70% improvement in children’s numeracy and literacy performance,

With the additional classrooms that Save the Children has built, the existing classrooms have become less crowded, and the children are now able to learn in clean and comfortable classrooms.

Our biggest concern right now is the lack of space in the library and the shortage of storybooks for children to improve their reading skills. We would like more reading materials to help improve children's reading skills, and we would like the project to support the construction of more library rooms. 

We are very thankful to Save the Children and the supporters for the support they have given thus far, and I would want to ask them to continue supporting us so that we may improve the situation here, which sometimes requires addressing all the issues that we currently face.

Background / Project information 

Though more children are in school in Gambella today than ever before, many lack the basic skills of reading and computation. Save the Children, in collaboration with the Regional Education Bureau and Woreda Education Offices, is assisting schools in the Gambella region to improve the quality of education by providing literacy and numeracy training to primary school teachers, supplying supplementary reading materials to target schools, establishing reading corners, and raising community awareness of the importance of education.

The training given to the teachers has enabled them to develop new skills and techniques in play-based learning, helping children to learn letters, read, and comprehend better and know the basics of math.