June 14, 2024

Dear Reader,

I am inspired to share a glimpse of who we are and what we aspire for our children. The Dow Academy is a family owned daycare to secondary school in Mochudi, Botswana.

Mochudi is a village in the Botswana tradition. Sprawling, spacious, secure and a place where we take turns feeding large groups of people under the official reason of wedding or funeral. Mochudi is home to a people who don’t know how to quit their choral music history, whose particular brand of Setswana is peppered with borrowed Dutch words, whose people gave refuge to South African freedom seekers in need of peace and a way through. Home to people who speak plainly. In short, it is a place with a community that has a strong sense of identity, who at the end of each year gather in groups in the outskirts of villages, under trees, in unforgiving heat, to sing and dance in unison to melodies whose origins are lost in antiquity.

As a child growing up I could and was forgiven many things, but as my mother oft repeated to me, “I cannot understand anyone, whom when given a choice would choose ignorance.” Whenever the dubious proclivities of humanity were being debated, my grandmother would quietly ask, “did they go to school, or are they educated.” These are the turns of phrases that join my carbon atoms. They are the reasons why I run a school.

Our hope, our toil and our morning prayer is for our children to leave our school with the courage and creativity to tackle the questions here present and those yet to be asked, and with the sense of community necessary to answer them sustainability. To do that, we must provide a safe place for them to learn, to grow, and to become who they are. It is an ask that requires all of us, for all the years yet to come; that is why we are grateful that today you chose a Diamond of Wonder.

Cheshe Dow
Chair of The Dow Academy Trust