Help Complete Zambezi Sawmills Community School

Zambezi Sawmills Community School has been a hub of activity the last few months! So many great things have been happening there, and – with the help of two great partners – progress is really being made towards giving the school a brighter and more sustainable future.

Enough funds have now been raised to start building the classroom block up to roof level, and the building started two weeks ago.  The school is so full it’s bursting, and a new classroom will give them more space to house the 495 students that are already enrolled at the school and potentially enable them to accept more children to attend the school. This year alone, they turned away over 100 children who wanted to join.

In other news, the council graded and flattened the school grounds, which means now the wall fence is complete. With the school finally being secure, we were able to start an income generating activity there.  The school will have a food garden where they’ll grow their own fruit and vegetables and sell them at the local market, which will allow them to raise much needed income.  In the future, they hope to use some of the vegetables and income to start a feeding program for some of the most vulnerable students.  This has been an idea for some time, but access to water and being able to pay the water bills has been an issue.  This is where Pocklington School from the UK stepped into the picture. They had been fundraising at home before coming out to volunteer with us and have made most of this possible.  They donated the funds needed to build a borehole at the school, equipment and seeds for the garden as well as the manpower to build it.  The Tag Rugby Trust UK has also been involved, and again they kicked off the planning and digging of the garden as well as the planting of chinese cabbage, rape, impwa, green pepper and spinach.  After the Tag Rugby Trust UK group left, Pocklington School arrived and took over to complete the garden and tree nursery.  They brought with them shade netting, bananas, lemons, oranges, limes, naartje, grenadillas, mangos and guava trees in addition to seeds of tomatoes, onions, sugar loaf, impwa, cabbage and cucumber.  The generous donations and time spent by these two organisations, as well as our other donors and on the ground fundraising, has given the school an opportunity to become self-sufficient – providing extra funding for their school, which relies on sporadic and minimal financial support from the government. We are currently fundraising to complete the classroom block, Please visit www.globalgiving.org/projects/complete-a-school-in-zambia/ to donate and receive quarterly reports on the progress of the project.