Schools get weather stations, lab equipment

THE Zimbabwe Chapter of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWEZI) on Monday donated weather stations and laboratory equipment to schools in Harare in support of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programmes.

The three schools that received the Atmos 41 weather stations are Oriel Girls, Manyame and Mabvazuva high schools.

Oriel Girls, Mabvuku, Domboramwari, Epworth, Tafara 1 and Tafara 2 high schools each received $400 worth of laboratory equipment.

FAWEZI chairperson Ms Irene Mkondo said they donated the equipment to help improve the quality of education, especially for the girl child.

“Our niche as an organisation is the girl child. We continue to work with them to ensure they stay in school.

“As it is known there are issues of teenage pregnancies, early marriages, school drop outs because of various issues affecting the girl child,” said Ms Mkondo.

“We understand that with access to education must also come quality. It is our hope that by handing over these equipment we are increasing the quality of scientific, geographical, statistical, meteorological and mathematical education for our learners.

“Quality is also affected by resources so we looked at the STEM programs needs of the schools they identified and we try and help the little bit that we can through our sourcing of funding from various donors.”

She also said that the donations were in support of the new curriculum.

“The weather station is cutting age equipment and one of the newest and most innovative weather stations on the market which blends well with the new curriculum.

“While most weather stations are difficult to install and maintain, the Atmos 41 packages 12 weather sensors into a single, compact device for atmospheric conditions,” she said.

FAWEZI hopes to donate more weather stations to other schools in future.