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Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, [email protected]

A heritage online project created by an Eveline High School teacher and his learners has won an international award, Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award.

The Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award is a US$2,500 award that eligible educators can apply for to sustain or scale their challenge project(s).

The award funds will be granted to educators’ educational organisations.

It also connects and engages students in authentic, relevant problems, projects, and experiences.

Since launching in 2021, more than 200 teachers from schools and youth organisations across 48 countries have engaged with the Ciena Solutions Challenge.

The website, https://ilifalethu.co.zw/, by the Bulawayo school was created in 2021 as a way of keeping children occupied during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The mission was to document the intangible local and national heritage in digital format for educators, learners, and the general populace.

In a statement, Digital Promise, the US organisation behind the award said winning projects showcased the talents of youth creators and change-makers from around the world.

“Today, we are proud to celebrate 20 projects from the 2023 Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award recipients and Ciena Solutions Challenge Model Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ottawa, Canada,” read the statement.

“Congratulations to all the student teams who participated in the 2022-2023 Ciena Solutions Challenge, including the following Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award recipients from Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Nigeria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, United States, and Zimbabwe.”

The 2023 Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Awards were announced on April 12th, 2023.

The educator in charge of the project at the city school, Mr Jobert Ngwenya said the initiative was inspired by the changes in the school curriculum in 2017.

“The project involved the digital preservation of our intangible heritage. With the introduction of Heritage Studies in 2017 in our curriculum, we discovered that most of the information is not available in print and digital format. We, therefore, came up with the idea of gathering information from various key resource persons in order to have a digital depository for our heritage. We collected information using digital tools like our phones, cameras, and digital audio recorders, and curated and edited the information before uploading it on our website,” said Mr Ngwenya.

He said that way, the Zimbabwean heritage is being preserved and accessible worldwide for learners, teachers, and the community.

The student project manager, Natasha Chiriya, one of the learners at Eveline, said the award is beyond her wildest dreams and she feels blessed to have been part of the work which helped win the award.

“The award has raised our school and country high giving hope to everyone that anything can be accomplished.

This project is helpful for fellow students and will surely help with challenges faced by pupils nationwide, especially in accessing the information on different historical and heritage topics. We hope that more people visit our open-access resource and share within their communities,” said Natasha.

The school is not new to trailblazing success as they recently came up with a cookbook on indigenous foods in Zimbabwe to curb the disease burden in the country.

Led by Mr Ngwenya, seven learners developed the book titled “Roots Beneath”, whose first volume will be published in IsiNdebele, Tonga, Nambya, Kalanga and ChiShona.

The book will cover the main food types of each culture with all recipes having an English translation.

Eveline has also given birth to outstanding entrepreneurs through the Determined Resilient Empowered Aids Free, Mentored and Safe (Dreams) programme which was implemented at the school targeting vulnerable girls.

Besides generating funds to cover fees and toiletries for learners, this programme has seen some former Eveline High School pupils establishing their companies which have created employment in Bulawayo.

Mr Ngwenya was recently named the 2022 Accountability Lab Integrity Icon Award winner, an honour for his outstanding work in fusing entrepreneurship with education thereby economically empowering girls.

The global Integrity Icon Award ‘names and fames’ public servants who display exemplary integrity and makes heroes out of ordinary people doing the right thing.