Help Complete Zambezi Sawmills Community School

Last month brought the Tag Rugby Trust over from England to help us out with our renovations at Zambezi Sawmills Community School. Due to uneven ground on one side of the school the wall wasn’t quite high enough. So The Tag Rugby Trust kindly agreed to help us out and fund the extra levels to make the wall higher as well as giving all the classrooms a new lick of paint. With all that is going on at Zambezi Sawmills Community School the difference is amazing, and you can see the impact it is having on the children so we thought now would be a great time to catch up with some of the people that this project is effect and see what they think of all the improvements happening at the school.

The resident Grade 5 teacher and deputy head, Mrs Likokoto has been working at Zambezi Sawmills School since 2010. Talking about the new wall she said;

‘We are so very happy, the improvements have helped a lot. Before we had people trespassing all the time, we tried planting with the children and everything was ruined by the cars. Now we have security and we really appreciate it.’

We asked her what part of the remaining renovations she was most excited about;

‘All of it. I am looking forward to the teacher’s house being built as it meant the school is at least secure. Vandals come in the evening and this way there is always someone there to protect the school. The classroom will be excellent for the children. It will relieve the pressure and mean we will not have to turn as many kids away. At the moment we have over 70 children in some of our classes, and turn away even more as we cannot take them on. We will still need more than one classroom but this new one will be a step in the right direction and improve the education for these children greatly.’

Meanwhile Kennid is a grade 7 student at Zambezi Sawmills School. He moved to Livingstone from Kazungula (approximately 65km away) back in 2011. Joining Zambezi Sawmills School in grade 3 he’s moved up the ranks and was voted most intelligent by his class. Talking about all the renovations happening at the school he said;

‘[They’re] really good. Before we had many problems. We kept trying to plant and they would trample on and steal them. People were always trespassing. The cars were so distracting, driving past the windows. I like [the wall] because now it is safe to learn, I am not worried at school and I can concentrate on my studies. I am most excited about the new classroom because there are so many of us in class at the moment. With improvements I think we will improve.’

The work that is happening at Zambezi Sawmills School is clearly making a big difference to the lives of the children here. Unfortunately construction on the classroom is on hold at the moment until funds build up enough to continue. In the meantime though it is amazing to know that the work going on at Zambezi Sawmills School is clearly making a positive impact on its pupils and we are excited to get cracking on building again as soon as funds allow…