About 25 years ago Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa with the highest literacy rates in the developing world and the best school system in Africa. However, due to political and economic challenges over the last decade, the education system is on the brink of collapse, and that constitutes a national emergency. By February 2009, 94% of rural schools closed and school attendance declined from 80% to 20%. The government abandoned all efforts to support rural schools, and parents could not afford to pay teachers and run schools. Subsequently, according to UNICEF, approximately 50% of primary school students did not move on to secondary school this year.

Concerned with the risk of Zimbabwe having an entire generation of uneducated people, we joined forces to establish the Zimbabwe Education Fund in 2008. We wanted to address both the education crisis and the issue of poverty that Zimbabweans faced. We hoped that our efforts would help to alleviate the relentless poverty through education with a low cost, high impact organization that could maximize small donations.

We founded this organization as a result of having a passion for and a commitment to empowering students through education. We wanted 100% of the donations to go towards the students, transparent and accountable administrators, and measureable results that have a positive impact on the students we sponsor. Although we are far from concluding that our support is responsible for lifting students from poverty, the progress towards our goals is tremendous