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SWAFIYA, A KENYAN GRANDMOTHER AND EDUCATOR Swafiya Said, grandmother to a child of pre-school age and a madrasa schoolteacher, realized as she followed her grandson's education through his early schooling, that the system of education in the Muslim community of Mombasa was not stimulating or challenging enough for the children. The traditional madrasa schools emphasized rote learning and provided few practical and enjoyable learning opportunities to children. Swafiya knew the children were clearly capable of wonders if they were exposed to more interactive and innovative teaching methods. Backed by years of teaching experience, Swafiya developed a new model for madrasa learning, which integrates pre-school subjects with a solid grounding in religious and cultural education. In 1986, recognizing her successful but still experimental methods in teaching, AKF provided Swafiya with a grant to design preschool provisions and training for low-income marginalized communities in Mombasa. Swafiya's vision and techniques proved successful and the demand for balanced madrasa education increased exponentially within the Muslim communities. Following Swafiya's pioneering step, AKF jumped in and established a Madrasa Resource Center (MRC) to provide training and support to the growing number of madrasa pre-schools. Eventually, the Madrasa Program spread to Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar.
Today, communities from all around East Africa are actively involved in managing the schools and supporting the quality of education for their young children. Communities create endowments to finance their local schools. They also help teachers create locally crafted and, therefore, culturally appropriate educational tools. Through training programs, the MRCs in all three countries are actively involved in improving the skills of parents and community members to effectively fund their schools, recruit and train teachers and troubleshoot problems that come with running good schools. People do not graduate individually from the MRC's programs. A community must, as one unit, meet the graduation requirements of the MRC in order to graduate from the program, including the collection and investment of financial resources as an endowment, the revenue of which will be used to support the pre-school. The MRCs continue to provide guidance and encouragement to the communities after graduation, and associations of graduated communities have been formed so that once communities are independent of the MRCs, they can share experiences and lessons learned on the management and maintenance of the madrasa pre-schools. With the initiative of one citizen, an entire system of education impacting thousands of people in one region was re-evaluated and re-structured. Over 9,000 pre-schoolers have benefited and over 900 young women have been trained as teachers. AKF partners on an ongoing basis with heroes like Swafiya, who are the real forces behind development, to enable their initiatives to have the greatest impact for the benefit of the people.
An initiative of Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A
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