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In Zimbabwe, many cannot afford the first building block of education – pre-school. Zimbabwe has a unique law which mandates that all students must attend two years of Early Childhood Development (ECD) pre-primary education before they can be enrolled in primary schools. Due to this law, the cost of pre-schools and ECD programs have gone up, forcing some families to pay fees that they cannot afford or enroll their children in unregistered, residential pre-schools. Shantel Marekera was once one of these children. Her grandmother struggled to pay steep pre-school fees while her mother attended university. Drawing from her own personal experience, Shantel started the Little Dreamers Foundation with the intention of providing access to affordable and quality pre-school education for vulnerable children in her community. In 2018 she became a Millennium Fellow and was able to take her social impact to the next level. Shantel has implemented several lessons that the Fellowship exposed her to in order to launch the Little Dreamers Foundation. One of the most notable lessons that she utilised was the skills mapping exercise which was integral to her fundraising strategy for her Foundation. She also reflected on how the Fellowship helped her to realise that in order to launch a successful venture she had to meet her community and develop trusting partnerships with them. “Even though I grew up in Zimbabwe and I identify with the problems that the kids are going through, I had been away for 4 years (in college), which created a gap between me and my community. I needed to recognise that I still have things I do not know and ask my community how best to fulfil its needs.” Shantel used the launch of her Foundation as a point of entry to communicate with her community and understand their needs. Not only did the lessons from the Millennium Fellowship help her to launch her organisation but the sense of community that the Fellowship and her university cohort provided also helped her to brainstorm ideas and feel supported. “It was a tight community and anyone could ask for help with anything. The strength that comes from having a community that understands where you are at any particular time was really important for me.” Since leaving the Fellowship, Shantel has passed many important milestones. Not only did she successfully launch her Foundation, but also, she is currently working on creating another branch of the Foundation in a neighbouring community, Budiriro. This new branch is expected to launch in January 2020. She has also bought a mini-bus that will aid in transporting her students to and from the pre-school.  She envisions a bright future for the Little Dreamers Foundation and would eventually like to secure land to build a huge school which includes a pre-school, elementary school, and high school.

Not everyone is born with the right to an education. “For me, my passion was born out of pain” -Tolani Odukoya Tolani Odukoya grew up in Lagos, Nigeria in a low-income community. Since his mother could not fund his education, he had to create his own opportunities. In high school, he started working at a local car-wash in order to put himself through secondary school and support his mother financially. Despite spending a significant amount of time earning money to support himself and his mother, Tolani excelled academically and was extremely intelligent. His school-teacher recognized his talent and supported him to go to university. Having gotten the opportunity to get an education, Tolani founded The Mindset Initiative in order to increase access to education in low-income communities like his own. He explained that in the current educational system, most students pass through school and end up with no tangible skills that can be applied to solve real-world problems. His organisation endeavours to fix this problem by training children between the ages of 12 to 16 on relevant 21st-century skills that prepare them for future employment while also empowering vulnerable girls and women. These children are taught a variety of skills including leadership, critical thinking, entrepreneurship, and design via what Tolani calls integrated education. In an increasingly digital world, Tolani has leveraged on teaching technology and innovation concepts and has placed a special focus on computer skills including programming and coding. He shared the story of a 13-year-old girl in the Makoko community in Lagos. The entire livelihood of the Makoko community depends on fishing. In fact, most of the children in this community do not go to school. Rather, they learn how to fish. However, this 13-year-old girl from Makoko was able to develop a mobile app that better-connected fishermen to buyers at a fair price, thereby aiding the economy of her community. Tolani said, 'if this young girl could develop such an innovative invention to meet a need in her community using creativity and technology then any child can too, provided they are exposed and empowered with the necessary skills.” Tolani credits the success of his organisation in no small part to his Millennium Fellowship experience. The Fellowship taught him how to transition his vision to action and exposed him to the relevance and the needs of his community. It also taught him how to become a leader in his community and how to channel his passion productively. He explained that his experience at the Millennium Fellowship taught him the concept of “servant leadership” and how essential it is to be a “servant leader” to thrive and positively impact the lives of others in any organisation. “I was passionate as an individual but didn’t know how to lead. Once I became a Fellow, I was able to connect with the content of the Fellowship.” Since leaving the Fellowship Tolani has not only managed to become a leader and launch his educational non-profit but he has also been able to strategize about the future. He hopes that his organisation will one day be a part of the government and that integrated education will be the norm in Nigeria and in Africa at large. He also hopes to continue raising money for his organisation through crowd-funding and grants.