Children living in rural communities face numerous challenges including lack of space in classrooms, shortage of learning materials and large teacher to student ratio. Add to this, children often start primary school after the age of six, children with disabilities face exclusion, poor quality teachers, gender inequality and the risk of gender-based violence in and on the way to and from school. These challenges lead to high dropout rates and low levels of completion and progression to secondary school.
Poverty, malnutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, and HIV and AIDS are all challenges that affect the education system and prevent children, especially girls, from completing their education and reaching their full potential.
Over the past 10 years DATUM FOUNDATION have assisted with and completed the building of twelve schools including two libraries. Working in partnership with local organisations and people to identify communities in need of support. We train people to learn the skills needed to construct a building, involving the whole community.
Not only do we strengthen children’s capacity to learn, we aim to equip people with the tools to maintain their new schools and continue to thrive long after our support has finished.
Stepping Stones Primary School, Nkhata Bay, Malawi
Construction of a new Creative Learning Classroom at the existing Stepping Stones School in Nkhata Bay in Northern Malawi.
Gender Equality in Education – Chisala, Malawi
Promote girls' education with a range of initiatives that will help to encourage more girls to first attend secondary school and secondly complete their education and allow them to develop the knowledge and skills they need for life and work
ICT Classroom – Chisala, Malawi
Provide Chisala Secondary School with a specialised Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) classroom to ensure each pupil at the school has hands-on access to modern computers
Library – Chisala, Malawi
A new library building for Chisala in Malawi, and an appeal to collect 1,000 books for it
Secondary School – Chisala, Malawi
With the support of the Malawi Education Department and Howard Brewer, we built a new secondary school in Chisala
Primary School – Ndongane, Senegal
Urgent improvements to a local village school in Ndongane, Senegal
Namdui Para Village School – Namdui Para, Bangladesh
The Humanitarian Foundation, working with Datum Foundation proposed the building of a new school in the village of Namdui Para, where children could not go to school 
Primary School – Kankalabe, Guinea
The primary school in the village of Kankalabe in Guinea was founded in 1929. Conditions were so poor that a local, Aliou Hann, approached DATUM to ask for help
Middle School – Abene, Senegal
The Middle School serves the villages of Abene, Albadar and Colomba in the region of Casamance - it was probably one of the poorest equipped senior schools in Senegal.
Library – Leh, India
DATUM provided funds towards shelves, tables, and chairs to fit out of the local school library in the Ladakh region of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
School – Kisongo, Tanzania
After visiting the village of Kisongo in 2009 DATUM decided to sponsor improvements to the village school Elikopea Urio had built for the deprived children of his community.