Save Nancy's English School
Donation protected
HELP SAVE NANCY'S ENGLISH SCHOOL IN BENGUELA, ANGOLA
WHO WE ARE
Hello Everyone,
I am Nancy Gottlieb, an American living and working in Angola for the last 25 years. I founded and run Nancy's English School in Benguela, Angola, together with a strong, dedicated and dynamic team of young Angolan leaders. These are some students.
Here is our Mission Statement:
“Nancy’s English School is a dynamic, modern learning center that prepares, encourages, motivates, inspires and equips young people and lifelong learners to communicate, live and work in the global community, by providing language courses, extra-curricular programs, translation services and international study facilitation.”
And that is what we have been doing! For the last several years, our school has been thriving, growing to 3 sites serving adults, teens, and children. Last year, we had a monthly average of 900 students, taught by a team of 38 young Angolan English teachers, many of whom were themselves former students of the school. In the midst of a country with so many challenges, our school is a vibrant oasis filled with a palpable positive energy.
Over the years our school has touched the lives of thousands of Angolans. Learning English has enabled our students to become global citizens, and to get jobs and build careers that previously would have been inaccessible to them. It has helped both our students and our teachers to build better lives for themselves and their families.
We also contribute to our communities. In 2019, in addition to our regular classes, we facilitated English Intensive Activities in which the students organized community-impact events, the planning of which was done completely in English. Our latest events were large donation drives for two local orphanages .
At one of the orphanages
WHY WE ARE ASKING
Our school is independent and runs on monthly school fees from our students. We operate on a small margin and I have invested most of our modest revenues back into the school.
With the onset of Covid-19, ANGOLA went on lockdown. With the school shut, our income stream has also abruptly ceased.
Realizing the imminent danger the Covid crisis poses to the future of our school, our entire management team sprang into action. Angola has special challenges for remote learning: the Internet is unreliable and too expensive for most of our students. But we’ve been developing different ways we can deliver high-quality lessons through a combination of audio conferencing, and limited online, and social media platforms.
We’ve run test groups during the last 3 weeks, with promising results! I believe we have the capacity to adapt to our new situation, and that in the future we will be able to provide both on-site and distance learning as parts of our core program.
But in order to get there, we urgently need your help. There is no government bailout available for our organization, and we have gone through our savings to continue to retain staff during this time.
We expect to need a few months to get our new distance-learning program up and running, and to start generating revenues from student fees again that will sustain the school. Our goal is to raise $30,000 to keep the school alive during this transitional period. These funds will be used to pay staff and teacher salaries, rent, taxes, and operation and development expenses during the next 3 months.
With your help, our school can emerge from this crisis even stronger. But if we cannot bridge our current financial gap, the school faces permanent closure.
We know that this is a challenging time for everyone. If you are moved and able to help by donating whatever you can, we will never be able to fully express our gratitude. But we will joyfully keep you updated on our story as we work to build a new future for ourselves, our school, and Angola!
Thank you so much!
End of year ceremony for Talking Kids program.
Click below to see a slide show of a few more photos!
WHO WE ARE
Hello Everyone,
I am Nancy Gottlieb, an American living and working in Angola for the last 25 years. I founded and run Nancy's English School in Benguela, Angola, together with a strong, dedicated and dynamic team of young Angolan leaders. These are some students.
Here is our Mission Statement:
“Nancy’s English School is a dynamic, modern learning center that prepares, encourages, motivates, inspires and equips young people and lifelong learners to communicate, live and work in the global community, by providing language courses, extra-curricular programs, translation services and international study facilitation.”
And that is what we have been doing! For the last several years, our school has been thriving, growing to 3 sites serving adults, teens, and children. Last year, we had a monthly average of 900 students, taught by a team of 38 young Angolan English teachers, many of whom were themselves former students of the school. In the midst of a country with so many challenges, our school is a vibrant oasis filled with a palpable positive energy.
Over the years our school has touched the lives of thousands of Angolans. Learning English has enabled our students to become global citizens, and to get jobs and build careers that previously would have been inaccessible to them. It has helped both our students and our teachers to build better lives for themselves and their families.
We also contribute to our communities. In 2019, in addition to our regular classes, we facilitated English Intensive Activities in which the students organized community-impact events, the planning of which was done completely in English. Our latest events were large donation drives for two local orphanages .
At one of the orphanagesWHY WE ARE ASKING
Our school is independent and runs on monthly school fees from our students. We operate on a small margin and I have invested most of our modest revenues back into the school.
With the onset of Covid-19, ANGOLA went on lockdown. With the school shut, our income stream has also abruptly ceased.
Realizing the imminent danger the Covid crisis poses to the future of our school, our entire management team sprang into action. Angola has special challenges for remote learning: the Internet is unreliable and too expensive for most of our students. But we’ve been developing different ways we can deliver high-quality lessons through a combination of audio conferencing, and limited online, and social media platforms.
We’ve run test groups during the last 3 weeks, with promising results! I believe we have the capacity to adapt to our new situation, and that in the future we will be able to provide both on-site and distance learning as parts of our core program.
But in order to get there, we urgently need your help. There is no government bailout available for our organization, and we have gone through our savings to continue to retain staff during this time.
We expect to need a few months to get our new distance-learning program up and running, and to start generating revenues from student fees again that will sustain the school. Our goal is to raise $30,000 to keep the school alive during this transitional period. These funds will be used to pay staff and teacher salaries, rent, taxes, and operation and development expenses during the next 3 months.
With your help, our school can emerge from this crisis even stronger. But if we cannot bridge our current financial gap, the school faces permanent closure.
We know that this is a challenging time for everyone. If you are moved and able to help by donating whatever you can, we will never be able to fully express our gratitude. But we will joyfully keep you updated on our story as we work to build a new future for ourselves, our school, and Angola!
Thank you so much!
End of year ceremony for Talking Kids program.Click below to see a slide show of a few more photos!
Organizer
Nancy A. Gottlieb
Organizer
Boston, MA
