REPORT FOR THE RESUMPTION OF PYP ACTIVITIES

In light of the ongoing Global CoronaVirus pandemic, coupled with the total lockdown order by the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Powerful Young Project on the 21st of March 2020 took measures towards protecting our stakeholders (pupils, volunteers, and interns) which were the suspension of all activities until the situation has been controlled. 

While the stay at home order lasted, a lot of educational opportunities or avenues were explored by private schools and other educational establishments to continue learning outside the school walls. Online methods were employed, however, such opportunities seemed more like a luxury for private school students than public school students. PYP has come up with a strategy to take advantage of online platforms to keep impacting her students. We have consistently maintained communication with them by sending them weekly assignments and educational videos via text message and WhatsApp, by informing them about educational programs going on within their reach like the radio lesson organized by the Lagos state government for Lagos state students and on May 30th, 2020, we organized a children’s day outreach where we distributed palliatives to the PYP kids/families to help support them during these difficult times. The outreach wouldn’t have been successful without our sponsors who donated and we are very appreciative of their contributions and support. On June 4th, the Federal government announced a partial lockdown which allowed for business to ease into beginning operations without restrictions, and ever since, the economy has picked up from where it stopped. We assessed the current learning atmosphere of our 2020 students and saw that there is a huge gap in the education system in Nigeria and many public schools are still lacking when it comes to adopting online methods of learning, we decided to bring back our PYP Common Entrance tutorials. Bearing in mind that social distancing is still one of the safest methods of preventing COVID-19 and protecting our students, we looked into also adopting the online approach to learning. On the 22nd of August, we resumed our Common Entrance online tutorial, albeit, virtually. Our virtual classes will be holding on WhatsApp every Saturday from 10 AM to 1:15 PM.

Prior to the day of the first class, we reached out to parents by sending them text messages announcing The PYP Common Entrance Virtual Classes. We reached out to volunteers to confirm interest and availability, they were as eager as always to support us. We organized a strategy meeting to work out a plan because we know this is an unfamiliar territory for us so there was a need to have a well laid out plan for this. Students were put into groups which represented classes and the teachers took turns to teach them maths, English language, verbal and quantitative reasoning. At the end of each class, volunteers met together on WhatsApp to discuss challenges and brainstorm solutions going forward and we have been seeing some immeasurable progress since we started over 3 weeks ago.

We have also kick-started some of our other activities like the Book Drive Project, PYP Impact Chat, SiT program, and more despite this. Our book drive project is set to take place on the 8th of September, 2020. Our summer school is set to hold later in the year.

We are continually hopeful that very soon we would all overcome the Pandemic and everything will go back to how they used to be. We can’t wait to get back to having classes face to face with our beloved PYP Kids!