The Sunday Mail
Salome Mutsinze
CEO, Mother Touch Schools
Mrs Salome Mutsinze founded Mother Touch ECD in 1997 in New Marimba. Today she is the CEO of Mother Touch Group of Schools (MTGS) comprising of two ECDs, a primary and High school. Last week the primary school held their speech and prize giving day and the CEO’s speech below covers most of the school’s accomplishments . . .
THIS is a great day that the Lord has made and we want to thank God for this wonderful occasion and for taking us this far. We say ‘Ebenezer thus far the Lord has taken us.’
On behalf of Mother Touch Group of Schools (MTGS) I want to thank you all for being part of this great occasion as we celebrate our 6th year of excellence, in junior school education and 18 years of Early Childhood Development (ECD). Your support throughout the year was amazing.
It is my singular honour and great opportunity to share our great God given vision with you this morning.
Some people have been called to build houses, some huge structures, some roads, some space stations, aeroplanes, cars, some complicated machinery and some, to bury the dead. But we thank God, for we have been called for the best, to build people, to build lives, and give hope. To build one child at a time, in a conducive environment so as to develop a unique, God fearing, extra ordinary, excellent child, who is capable of fulfilling God’s purpose in his or her own generation. Our vision as MTGS is to become the most preferred, comprehensive learning institution made up of Early Childhood Development, Junior, High School and Tertiary in a conducive environment with excellent standards of instruction provided by well-trained innovative staff to produce well rounded and grounded God fearing young men and women with the potential to become successful leaders in diverse sectors in this dynamic 21st century global village.
Building or developing people or lives is the greatest investment one can ever do as the Chinese proverb says: “If you want a year of prosperity grow grain, if you want 10 years of prosperity grow trees and if you want a lifelong or 100 years of prosperity grow People.” As a specialist in child development I want to share with you very important aspects in building successful people. It all starts at Early Childhood Development (ECD)
ECD is the holistic development of a child from conception to about 10 years according to UNICEF (2014). That means ECD covers the non-formal stage and a greater part of the junior school child almost up to grade six when you calculate.
It is a very critical stage for the human development and has to be handled diligently, i.e. correctly, and carefully. This is where the foundation of the child’s education career and whole life is laid as the bible in Mathew 8 v 24 Proverbs 22 v 6 emphasizes. On laying of a strong foundation with the word of God so that when the storms of life come the child will not be shaken, but will be grounded due to the word and the training done at a tender age.
It is therefore imperative that a strong foundation is laid down. This is the stage where the greater percentage of cognitive and personality development takes place. If done well, will certainly yield gratifying results.How do we correctly lay this foundation and what are the important aspects in building children well to become successful leaders. It’s all that one can find at Mother Touch. This is the very important aspect on our vision which is a conducive environment.
A conducive environment comprise of a variety of the, correct, relevant and appropriate infrastructure, equipment, curriculum and human resources. When these are in place every individual child is catered for according his/her cognitive, physical and social ability, interests and needs. Every child is afforded an opportunity to make choices, explore, experiment, discover, collaborate and learn to develop to full capacity.
At Mother Touch this is our area of specialty, the infrastructure includes, ever clean, safe, spacious, well dressed classrooms, ablution facilities, well equipped Information Technology (IT) and Music lab.Our outdoor facilities are superb. The ECD play centre has diverse real life objects. Our sporting facilities are state of the art and meet world class standards.
As MTGS we pride ourselves in leading the way in a number of facets the school is involved in. It is my greatest pleasure, to inform you that we are leading in Volley Ball and Rugby and have been selected as developmental centre. In terms of swimming I am also excited to inform you that Kirsty Coventry has started training our teachers and children from ECD to grade seven to learn to swim. As soon as every child is able to, at least float as a life skill, the Kirsty Academy will be launched at this school.
We have confidence that our children and many other deprived children will benefit fully and grow to become champions in the various sporting disciplines. We offer a wide curriculum that develops the child holistically i.e. spiritually, physically, socially and intellectually, so in another way of enriching our curriculum we are preparing for an International trip to UK in July 2016. This is in an effort to give our learners exposure to the Global village so that they become relevant to it.
To add on to the conducive environment our learners are instructed by highly qualified skilled, innovative academic and non-academic staff who provide a variety of learner centered methods and activities. Due to this excellent conducive environment our ECD and junior were awarded the best ECD model centre and best well maintained school at provincial level within the low density category respectively i.e. competing with centres and schools in the northern suburbs, the likes of Highlands, Mount Pleasant, Greystone, Borrowdale to name just a few.
These and other aspects not mentioned constitute a conducive environment bringing the child’s world into the school or classroom to foster cross cultural communication understanding that allows the learners to broaden their vision on the future and their place in it. Connecting with experts also increases the learners awareness of diverse career options and become relevant to the ever dynamic world. As we continue to move with the vision, we intent to have boarding facilities to cater for our parents whose work programs are demanding. Construction of the boarding house is at an advanced stage and we hope with God’s grace to open our boarding house doors 1st term of 2016.
In a way to pursue our vision we recently acquired 400 hectars of land just 80km from Harare along the Bulawayo road. We have great plans to expand and house a world class senior boarding school, together with Mother Touch University (MTU) and a camping site to develop these young people holistically and be successful in life. Our curriculum will also widen with more practical subjects to cater for each learner’s needs.
I am again excited to announce that as part already implementing practical subjects we have recently added driving as part of our wide curriculum. The driving school is fully registered and licensed with the Traffic Safety Board and is open to our students, staff, parents and the community at large. We have realized that we are yielding excellent results in line with our vision and mission. I always do research on children who passed through our foundational stage i.e. ECD and primary to find out how they are doing and if at all we are producing champions. I have discovered that most of our children are leading in primary and high schools, tertiary as well as life in general in different aspects like some as prefects, head boys and head girls, captains of industries and different disciplines. (80% doing sciences, 10% commercials and 10% arts.) At different universities nationally and internationally. The larger percentage is doing medicine, engineering and IT. Today we are privileged to see traces of evidence that MTGS is producing champions and leaders who are successful due to the correct and strong foundation that was laid. Just at the University of Zimbabwe the 8 children who passed through our ECD I managed to track and find, six of them are doing medicine and four are here today. Allow me to introduce them to you of the exhibit of the strong foundation. These are Nyasha Maboreke, doing 3rd year medicine, Takunda Chigamba, 3rd year medicine, Mitchel Sitotombe , 3rd year medicine, Clever Simba 1st year medicine. Tatenda Kamuzonde doing Accounting. Still at high school level we have Takunda Sitotombe doing upper six MPC, Tadiwa Kamuzonde MPC, Tinotenda Mutisnze MBC, this proves Mother Touch is producing leaders and more of scientists.
These are the people we are looking for, at such a time as this where we are faced with lots of challenges resulting from issues like climatic change, where huge dams run dry, shortage of power supply, draught , hunger , increase of diseases, high crime rate due to sophisticated IT, challenging economic environment, just to name a few. We need young people with the spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and knowledge, who can bring solutions to rulers, to their families, their communities, nation, and the global village, to make a difference and fulfill God’s purposes in their own generation. Our great achievements, successes and developments would not have been possible without the “Team’s” support and efforts. I sincerely want to thank the team who include our so faithful Almighty God, supportive parents, disciplined and diligent learners, service providers, sponsors prospective clients, board members and our parent body the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, our diligent and dedicated staff and management.
In conclusion I want to urge all stakeholders to continue with the team spirit towards this God given vision. Thank you for believing in us and in the great vision.
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