IMs Learning Sessions (KLS), a children’s learning initiative by a ten year old boy Kieran I. M. Khalique, has taken its third learning outreach to Daubile Memorial Academy, a private elementary school in Jonga community in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region.
The KLS initiative aims at promoting learning amongst children in rural and deprived communities to improve their academic outcomes and to help reach their ambitions in life.
The children were taken through interactive learning activities including creative and descriptive writings with the support of a team of volunteers and some staff of the school.
The Founding Patron of KLS and CEO of Mara Foods, Maria Johana Yuorpor said it was the first time the outreach was taken to a private school since its inception as it makes roots to reach diverse groups of children in rural communities in the region.
She described the session as insightful and impactful adding that, it was interesting to note the differences and peculiar capabilities and needs of the public and private schools visited so far.
“It was a good experience and all in all, we hope to get a lot more help to reach out to some of these schools because we see they are doing a tremendously good job,” Madam Yuorpor added.
Madam Yuorpor indicated that the overriding objective of the session is to engage pupils in lower primary schools to increase their interest in learning especially in aspects of reading, writing, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
She said KLS strives to provide learners with learning material including text and exercise books, work books, pens, pencils, erasers and other essential learning aids to support the children’s learning both at home and in school.
She hinted that KLS intends creating mini libraries in the schools it visits to stock the text books for all-round access to all pupils even as they transition to higher grades and also to extend the shelf life of the books as opposed to giving them to individual children.
On his part, the Proprietor of the school, Daubile Alhassan Malik thanked KLS for carrying out the outreach in his school as he believed it was going to help improve academic work and performance of the children in the school.
He encouraged the children to imbibe the spirit of learning in order to achieve their academic dreams as well as aims in life.
Mr Malik further admonished parents to cater to the schooling needs of their children in terms of learning materials and other necessities to help improve their learning.
Overall, about 100 pupils were engaged in the session and twelve of them who exceptionally completed the tasks of the day received various award packages with 75 story books given out to the children.
Some children who participated in the session expressed their profound appreciation to KLS for the knowledge and skills imparted in them as well as the award packages.
KIM’s Learning Session is conceived by Kieran Iqbal Mwinekumo, the 10-year-old son of the CEO of Mara Foods, when he followed his enterprising mother to rural communities where she trained women on vocational and business development skills, during which he saw that children who came with their mothers loitered aimlessly and he thought the children should be engaged in a separate program – KIMs Learning Sessions.