ZHEST (Zimbabwe Health Education and sustainability Trust) School Twinning Project is for primary and secondary schools in Zimbabwe and the UK. The project aims to facilitate the development of meaningful partnerships between school communities in Zimbabwe and the UK, enabling the learning, sharing and experiencing of local knowledge and issues.
We would like all who come into contact through the project to have a fuller appreciation of the world in which they live, and of how they can contribute to making it a better place. We believe that school partnerships must be based on mutuality, equality, learning and sustainability.
ZHEST facilitates the ‘twinning’ of schools in the UK with their counterparts in Zimbabwe through liaison between schools and provision of information about hard to reach rural schools in Zimbabwe. By helping to twin Zimbabwean and UK schools, ZHEST is fostering a greater awareness of global issues, through real people and real experiences. We believe this enrichment benefits pupils and teachers from both communities – culturally, morally, spiritually and socially.
Benefits of Partnerships between Schools
School twinning offers many benefits and works well when it is of mutual benefit. When a school builds a partnership with a school in another culture, it gains access to a whole new range of ideas, thoughts and experiences. Classes, sport, facilities and timetables are suddenly seen through a different set of eyes to those of your school’s pupils and teachers.
Promoting Greater Cultural & Social Understanding: Each country contributes to the understanding and benefit of the other, generating two way traffic in terms of cultural and educational twinning.
Promotes the importance of social justice as an element in both sustainable development and the improved welfare of all people.
Motivates students: When students’ are involved in and committed to partnership relationships, it contributes to a more motivating, meaningful and empowering learning experience.
Encourages personal and professional development in staff: The different learning and teaching contexts experienced by staff broadens and deepens their professional expertise and commitment to global dimension goals.
Promote equality and reciprocity: The active participation of school partners, each contributing and benefiting equally from the negotiation and agreement of joint aims, results in shared outcomes.
Community Engagement: Community involvement strengthens the local community and where possible, encourages collaboration with diaspora groups. It may also bring new resources, financial and human, which contribute to the sustainability of the partnership.
How you can help
Schools: We are currently seeking schools in the UK (primary or secondary) which are interested in forming a partnership relationship with individual schools in Zimbabwe. Twinning your pupils with their peers, in another culture on the other side of the world, allows them to compare and contrast their experiences with those of real people, people they can communicate with and identify with.
Individuals and organisations: We gratefully welcome membership of and donations from those with the vision to see what can be, and is being, achieved.
Contact
Mutsai Hove Bird
01793 322184