School Health Monitoring

In May 2008, it was one of ZOP’s first collaborations with IMPACT, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training that enabled the beginning of the School Health Monitoring Project.

The training of each student health monitor means that they are then able to carry out assessments of 50 fellow students; a pupil with symptoms is then sent to their teacher who carries out a second examination and if convinced that the child has a disease, a report is sent to the doctor who comes to the school to treat the child and refer on those in need to specialists at Mnazi Mmoja hospital in Stone Town. The program is sponsored in its entirety by IMPACT.

It was through this outreach work into schools that the charity arm of ZOP came into being. Levels of poverty were noted and in response, ZOP now has a designated wing of operations that collects and distributes charity items throughout the year, mainly in the form of clothes and shoes.