About us

OUR HISTORY

In 2009 three graduates from the African Bible College in Malawi took year-long internship roles with the UrbanPromise International (UPI) in Camden, New Jersey. Their experiences prompted them to start Rays of Hope in Malawi with seed money from UPI. The first program was an afterschool tutoring initiative that targeted students who were underperforming in public primary schools. Students were required to go to public schools in the morning, and later, come to our program for more instruction hours. The high teacher-student ratio at 1:120 made learning difficult for the students. Our program cemented students’ literacy and numeracy gains.

We struck a partnership with the Ministry of Education, and the local schools selected underperforming students to join our program. We got 40 students. When they came from school, fed them, and assigned them a tutor/mentor. They received personalized remedial support, took them on field visits, and resources to accelerate literacy and numeracy skills. We saw great results. The first cohort scored a 95% pass rate in the national standardized tests.

In 1994, Malawi had its first democratic government, which led to the introduction of many development initiatives to spur economic growth. Despite the efforts to increase its economic growth, the country’s economic status shows an inverse growth. For instance, in 1994 the first democratic government abolished school tuition in primary (elementary and middle) schools in Malawi. Among many efforts, this was done to accelerate development through universal education. Today, 27 years later, the country registers low graduation numbers, high grade repetition rate, and high school dropout rates in primary schools.

Core Values

Innovate

We commit to be a learning organization that is very sensitive to the needs confronting our communities. We realize that old solutions are coming in different forms, which calls for a revolutionized way of thinking. ROH encourages the culture of thinking differently in dealing with old-time issues.

Be Transparent

We are a public institution; as such, we have an obligation to be transparent in the way we design, program, and report. It is our mandate to put systems that will uphold this value.

Commit

The whole team is not here for monetary incentives; we are here to see lives changed for disadvantaged children. To that end, commitment binds us together – this is lived in the way we hire people as well.

Create

As a learning organization, we abide by the implicit call to respond to problems drawn from our program learning that are within our sector of implementation. The whole team is oriented in the culture of engaging in the micro-creation responses and the top management drives huge changes to be relevant.

Uphold Morality

We are committed to supporting any behavior that promotes moral decisions.

Value Community

We are a family and the community we serve in is our family as well. We create community in and out of the organization.