Sarah is a music teacher who began volunteering at AHLC in the fall.  She says, “I am incredibly blessed to work here, where the students are eager to learn and incredibly smart!  To be able to see music touch the lives of these students is a joy.”   As to the choir she has been working with she adds, “they are incredibly talented, putting together pieces of music that they love, adding movement to it, and performing at a high level in front of a large audience! They have already performed twice for the public at celebrations, and will continue to do so this spring!”

Teaching and Learning Committee
There are a lot of things that go into making a school, but teaching and learning are at the center.  And at the center of African Hope’s teaching and learning is its Teaching and Learning Committee compromising Dr. Molly, Lesley, Heather, Karen, Kizito and other volunteers.  These educators come from Zimbabwe, UK, Netherlands, Argentina, USA, Australia and Uganda and have around 80 years of teaching experience.  Together they oversee curriculum development, training and evaluation at African Hope. 
Before school returned after Christmas Break, the T & L Committee planned and implemented training for our teachers in how to write yearly teaching plans.  Teachers worked for 4 days to identify teaching and learning goals, how to break down the curriculum into topics and weekly units, identify resources for teaching and consider how to best evaluate if their students had met the original goals.  Quite an accomplishment for our teachers but they were overwhelmingly appreciative of the new skills they learned and were excited to be able to put these plans into action when school returned. 
We are also in the process of acquiring curriculum for Science and Social studies from Grades 1 through 6.  Until now, we have had no set curriculum for these subjects so teachers have had to draw from the internet and from their own knowledge of these subjects.  This often resulted in gaps or overlaps from grade level to grade level.  Anyone interested in helping us cover costs involved in buying these materials can contact African Hope; we would be delighted to hear from you. 
Other major challenges and accomplishments that committee members have undertaken this year include:-

• Organizing the Guided Reading resources donated by Cairo American College
• Organizing the Guided Reading program for Kindergarten to Grade 3 one lesson a week. 
• Providing additional learning support to highly-at-risk learners
• Providing ongoing teacher evaluation and feedback
• Developing a Strategic Plan for the Teaching and Learning arm of African Hope
• Providing Professional Development Seminars and one-on-one assistance for staff
• Overseeing the development of yearly plans for each subject, at each grade level
• Developing classroom resources for teachers
• Attending the Cairo International Book Fair (the oldest one in the world) to find resources.