Teach2Teach International
1261. Anita Lowenstein Dent
Anita Lowenstein Dent, from London, is the founder of ‘Teach2Teach International’, a charity which trains talented, but unemployed, young people living in deprived communities in Ghana to become excellent volunteer teachers in their own communities.
After travelling to northern Ghana, Anita saw the potential for creating an innovative training programme that could both transform educational opportunities for the region’s children, and provide opportunities for unemployed young people to develop skills and gain sustainable incomes. Working closely with Ghanaian NGO ‘Teach for Life’, ‘Teach2Teach International’ designed the Community Volunteer Teacher Programme which uses a cutting-edge educational methodology that achieves the same results in ten months that would normally take three years using traditional methods. The charity has since been awarded a grant from the Small Charities Challenge Fund, the Department for International Development’s fund supporting charities to achieve sustained poverty reduction.
In a personal letter to Anita, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
“I know you do this with no thought of praise or reward, but allow me to offer my own recognition of how ‘Teach2Teach International’ is training the teachers of the future, giving young people across Ghana the education they need to succeed in their own lives and communities.”
International Development Minister Baroness Sugg said:
“Anita Lowenstein Dent’s tireless commitment to train talented young people in Ghana to become teachers is making a big difference. I’m delighted her transformational work to help people find jobs and give children a quality education is being recognised with a Points of Light award.
“The Small Charities Challenge Fund makes it easier for small British charities like Teach2Teach International to access UK aid, helping them to improve lives in the poorest countries.”
Anita said:
“I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of Teach2Teach International. T2T works in some of the worlds poorest communities where literacy and numeracy rates can be below 10% and unemployment runs at over 50%. By training talented by unemployed young people to be teachers of excellence in their local communities, we ensure that our teachers and their students better life opportunities. In short, we train teachers to teach and students to learn. The support of UK aid and the DFID SCCF grant is foundational to our work and it a partnership which we value enormously.”