Country of Residence
South Africa
Age
20
Project title
Equip To Rise
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Euqip To Rise: Striving to make a difference in a child’s school journey by investing in their future through the supply of school shoes and sanitary products, making it possible for them to attend school, with the hopes of extending it to a supply of full school uniforms and meal packages in the future.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
N/A at the moment
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Idea (We’re hoping to get started in the future)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I was walking my niece and nephews to school when I came across a really young learner who was going to school without shoes, this made my heart ache and I immediately wished I could make a change. I have also come across a lot of young girls who weren't able to go to school because the only form of sanitary pads they had at the time were tissue papers or torn pieces of clothing material. This showed me that there are a lot of learners who can't continue with school, not because they don't want to but because they find themselves in an underprivileged situation where even their parents/guardians can't afford to buy them the necessary products they need to continue with school. There are a lot of learners that I would assist if I could, because it breaks ny heart seeing young children, specifically black children fail to continue with school because of their circumstances.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
I want to solve the problem of lack of necessary products a child needs to continue with school, such as the lack of school shoes, sanitary products, school uniforms, having an empty stomach, books and many more problems that might be hindering a child's path to education. This matters to my team and I because we believe that every child should have access to education, especially in communities where a child is faced with uncertainty or discouraging situations. This would bring joy to our hearts because we would know that we were able to help a child continue with school, which has the potential of opening many doors and opportunities for them, just as we were able to go to go school and open doors for ourselves.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Our first call to action would be scouting for funders and investors, look for schools we can help, specifically primary schools (grade R - Grade 7) where we can find a list of young learners who need assistance with finding school shoes, sanitary products etc. We would then start looking for suppliers where we can find affordable but tangible schools shoes because we want to help as many learners as we can. After finding the suppliers, our plan begins... where we go back to the schools we initially found and gift the learners with their school shoes. From there onwards, every child we help would be able to continue with scholl without the worry of not having school shoes, not being able to wash for school or not having sanitary pads for the days nature calls(girls). We believe this would make a huge difference as we have been in their shoes and we understand how discouraging it is to not be able to go to school because your sanitary pads ran out.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
We want to do more research into the amount of learners that actually need assistance so that we can be able to tackle it fully. By doing so, we will be giving our learners hope to look forward into the future without worrying about not having enough supplies to attend school. This will encourage them to attend lessons, to do better in their scholl performance as well as boost their confidence because there's nothing that screams confidence like having everything you need to be ready to tackle a school environment.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Our project isn't entirely new as there are already existing campaigns that strive to make the change we also plan on making. The only difference is that even with all the campaigns involved, not every school or learners benefit from them. Which could be because of geographical locations and limited access to resources that help them reach potential donors. With Equip To Rise, we plan on visiting schools in underprivileged communities, where we know that they aren't as reachable as other students. We plan on adding on to already existing wonderful campaigns that strive for Child Welfare and reach even more schools and learners.
How many people are on your team?
3
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
2. Keitumetse Ngomane (myself) - Project manager, the main point of communication. Responsible for making final decisions, budget, buying, keeping receipts, delegating tasks and reporting back to funders 2. Thina Phiri - Operations lead, responsible for finding suppliers, sizes, best prices for negotiating, collection and storage of products 3. Magdeline Semenya - communications lead, responsible for finding beneficiary school, lists of learners, responsible, BTS content for progess keeping
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
After establishing our project, the next step would be creating a social media page or any form of engagement and reachable page, this is where our mission statement, goals, future plans, point of communication and a call to action will be displayed. We can use this to conduct interviews with learners/schools that we find where we can get an indepth explanation lf the resources they need to maintain their eduactions journey. The next step would be looking for funders and investors, we will also create a fundraising link where people who are far can be able to lend a helping hand. Once our funds have been locked in place, that's when we can start buying and supplying the schools and learners we have found, making sure to keep receiepts and keep track of all events by recording media, this will be included in our portfolio. Moving forward, we plan on increasing our supply, by giving out full school uniforms, meal packages and stationery with the help of funders.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Since this is still a new idea, our only form of reaching out is our call to action through our planned pages of communication with our community. This is where we will mention what we plan on achieving in full detail, where we can share with people how they can help us. We will share our stories, visit school, share why we chose this project, how we plan on making a change and how they can help. We believe that this would be a great starting point.
