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on A Zambian Experience (Zambia), 08/Feb/2011 13:23, 34 days ago
I’ve taken the morning off work today to visit a school project out in the bush which has been supported by Alan Powell, accompanying partner to Frances Powell, a vso volunteer based in Chipata.As with many school projects I’ve visited here, I’ve only seen the end result happy singing kids, lots of hand clapping and sometimes a stern teacher in the corner looking slightly annoyed that you have come to disrupt their lesson plan). However with the community school in Chisiro village, Chipata, I have been fortunateenough to see it being built from scratch, all with the support of the local community who literally moulded the bricks and put in months of hard labour to build their school.With support from Teacher Aid,(a Welsh based charity), building materials were sourced and very quickly the first shelter of the school was erected within a couple of months. They’ve even started a feeding programme which means that all children will have something to eat during the day.Before the school was built the children which you can see in the pictures had to walk for 2 hours through the bush to reach their nearest school based in town. Imagine doing that with no food in your stomach. You wouldn’t have the energy to battle along the thick bush, especially after fetching buckets of water from the hills at the crack of dawn before school. No wonder many children just didn’t go to school.In Zambia all school children no matter what their age have to pay for school fees if they attend a government school. As well as term fees, their parents/guardians have to find money for books, uniform, stationary, the school bus, other‘unforeseen’ expenses and even money to support the PTA.In a country which is coping with the HIV pandemic most families simply can’t afford to pay for all their children to attend school, so then it becomes a difficult decision as to which child to send. Of course it’s usually the boys.This is why there has been an increase in community schools, particularly in Chipata, as they are run by the community themselves and therefore people have more of a say as to how it should be run and which fees to charge (if at all). The school in Chisiro is an example of this type of school. The children do not pay fees, they also receive a meal a day. The teachers offer their time for free and it’s hoped that in the near future the community will work together to develop their own income generating activities in order for the school to be sustainable.When we turned up to visit, it was great to see the children already at lessons. They welcomed us with obligatory dancing and singing and the teacher was smiling and dancing too!Alan has done well to create the linkage with the outside world, but I think Chris Mbewe and his community have done equally well at literally getting things off the ground. It shows that when a community is truly mobilised great things can happen and in the case of Chisiro village, very quickly too!