ANN MUNTATI: TEAM ANGAZA INTERN

Portrait of Ann with her young son Paul in 2022. Photo: Kate Lapides-Black.

“When I saw these beautiful girls and boys and how they were not being educated, I felt pain in my heart. That is what motivated me to start talking with the community about opening an ECD school closer to Olentarakwai.”

Ann is our intern for the Olmesutie region, where she works to identify out-of-school children and enroll them into primary school. After recognizing that the closest ECD (early childhood education) center was too far for children to safely walk to, Ann became the second of our Team Angaza interns to take the initiative to organize her community to open a preschool closer to their village of Olentarakwai.

Ann’s motivation was similar to the feelings of two other Team Angaza - Naserian Naitipa and Emily Sulul – who organized their communities to open preschools closer to their villages in 2022. “When I saw these beautiful girls and boys and how they were not being educated, I felt pain in my heart,” Ann explains. “That is what motivated me to start talking with the community about opening such an ECD school closer to Olentarakwai. The parents had told me the biggest problem was that when it rains and the river [near Olmesutie] begins flowing, the small children cannot safely pass. Now, with this school, we can keep children educated –– and safe.”