You may not be aware but IT Schools Africa was originally 
established as an outreach programme of the Isbourne Foundation, 
as an extension of their mission to 'create positive lives through
education'. 

The Isbourne Holistic Centre was founded in 1995 and over the years 
has become the pioneering charity for well-being and spiritual development in the South West of England. The Cheltenham based charity offer a wide range of courses, workshops and talks to support positive personal development. 

As you'll know if you have been following ITSA in recent months, 
we have been running a programme with HMP Eastwood Park which
encourages the female inmates to work together, learning IT and 
workplace skills that improve their chances of gaining employment
upon release. 

When the Isbourne Centre heard about the positive work we were doing with the women at Eastwood Park, the idea came to them that they could also do something to encourage and support the women. From this the idea of a well-being project was born. The Isbourne will soon begin an ongoing project with vulnerable women in the prisons drug recovery programme. The project sets out to help enable, empower and support the women as they go through the difficult journey of detoxing. 

"This project will offer lasting take-away techniques which can be
life-changing and helpful in breaking self-limiting and unhealthy
cycles." - The Isbourne Centre. 

You can keep up to date with everything that is happening at The Isbourne Holistic Centre by following their Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Computers for Malawian Schools are one of the NGO’s that we work with in Africa to help bring good quality computers to students in Malawi. 

Without the hard work of our programme managers overseas, it would not be possible for us to give so many schools the tools they need to educate their students in IT. 

This week we would like to introduce you to Sabina, the programme manager at Computers for Malawian Schools. ​

Q - What is the most rewarding thing about working for Computers for Malawian Schools (CFMS)? 

Sabina - I enjoy my job first of all.  The most rewarding thing is to see the students’ enjoyment expressed on their faces when working on computers given to them. Similarly meeting the teachers and students and helping them in any way I can. Most students in Malawi are under privileged and cannot dream of using a computer. As a part of CFMS, providing such an opportunity to a student who will make the maximum use is a great achievement.

Q - How much of an impact does the work you’re doing have on schools in Malawi? 

Sabina -The schools really appreciate all the hard work we do for them and so do the students.  We are well known and it gives me great joy to be part of the CFMS group in helping promote IT Education in schools and seeing goals being achieved.

Q - How does the work carried out in the UK by IT Schools Africa, directly link to the work your team are doing at CFMS?

Sabina - The link that is there between CFMS and IT School Africa is to achieve one aim. Our main goal is to bring good quality refurbished computers from ITSA and to foster ICT knowledge to our students and to help as many schools as possible. Some schools have been given IT Labs which they could never have dreamt of having. 

Q - Anything else you would like to add? 

Sabina - We are now expanding CFMS to have a computer training facility to attract the local community and anyone interested in learning computer basics. We also have plans to provide internet access to the public by opening an Internet café near our office. 

Find out more about how we are working with CFMS to change IT education in Malawi. 

Today marks International Womens Day, a day where we celebrate the achievements of women from around the world, both past and present. 

What better way to celebrate this event than by sharing with you some of the feedback we received from the women who are enrolled on our IT workshop programme at HMP Eastwood Park. 

Recently we have been working with the women's prison to provide an environment where prisoners can learn and develop new skills, refurbishing computers. This gives the chance to be productive with their time, helping a good cause that makes a positive difference to the lives of many others.

Some of the comments that the women made show how much of a positive impact the programme is having. We are hopeful that by giving the women the opportunity to learn new skills and gain confidence in a working environment, it will improve their chances of gaining employment upon release and break the cycle of re-offending. 

We asked a number of the women taking part in the ITSA workshop what they liked about the programme...

"it gets me out of my cell and keeps me occupied"

"it gives me an opportunity to get to know new people"

"Knowing that i'm doing something to help people less fortunate than myself"

"I am learning new things about computers"

Of the 7 women asked, 6 said that they felt the programme would help them in the future. Out of those same 7, 6 said that they found the work either interesting or very interesting. 

The majority of the population at HMP Eastwood Park have short sentences, that is why we want to show the women the positive things they can achieve, and leave their past lives behind them. 

#InternationalWomensDay