About
Formed in 2016 in Zimbabwe, Education Matters matches talent with opportunity. Youth hold the keys to our future, and we are here to close the access gap to help motivated young people achieve their dreams and positively lead lives of purpose and impact. We serve as a clearinghouse of opportunities for high-achieving, low-income students, publicized through our popular EdMatters Updates. Our programs include the Zimbabwe Career Connect Internship Program which matches Zimbabwean students in the U.S. with local organizations and companies for two month internships, partnering with the Rise program of Schmidt Futures, a training program for high school career counselors and the Zimbabwe Science Fair. We also support TWEENS, a youth tutoring, academic and social center started and run by USAP refugee alumni in Tongogara Refugee Camp in Eastern Zimbabwe.
Education Matter’s flagship program, the United States Student Achievers Program (USAP) began in Zimbabwe in 1999 to providing access to higher education for determined, bright, low-income youth, thus producing highly-skilled and liberally-educated leaders for tomorrow’s Zimbabwe. More than 650 Zimbabwean USAP students have excelled as students at top colleges and universities aroundn the world. USAP was formerly housed as part of EducationUSA before migrating to Education Matters.
In 2020, Education Matters opened the USAP Community School, a residential 11th and 12th grade (A Level) school that educates high-achieving, low-income Zimbabwean students to excel at the world’s top universities and return home to build society. USAPCS is built on the values of Integrity, Equality, Service and Curiosity and is a Quaker affiliated school that centers Africa and prepares students for lives of impact and purpose on the Continent. Our first two cohorts of students have been very successful at attaining full funding to attend a wide variety of top colleges and universities in the United States, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, Costa Rica, Rwanda and India. Our third and fourth cohorts currently comrpise the 74 students at our school. In addition to taking A level science subjects, USAPCS students engage in classes in Humanities, Reasoning, Research Methodology, Computers and Python, and all complete a year long capstone project that relates what they learn to researching and working to solve real problems in their communities. We are currently building our permanent intentional and sustainable campus where we hope to move at the start of the 2024 Zimbabwean academic year.
Before opening, we were excited recently to be featured in the New York Times in a column written by Frank Bruni:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/opinion/sunday/ivy-league-schools.html