LearnAsOne

On Friday with I met with ZOCS (Zambia Open Community Schools), the final NGO we have planned to meet on this trip. We discussed their work across Zambia and I was taken to visit Zambezi Sawmills Community School which is in Livingstone itself.

Charles Chama, the Program Officer for Community Development, travelled down from the ZOCS head office in Lusaka (about a 7 hour bus ride) for the meeting. And George Siankwa, Head of the Parent Community Schools Community (PCSC) for Sawmills, made a short journey across town.

We started with a long discussion about the scope of ZOCS work. They do numerous things in the education sector from working with communities to build schools, to teacher training, facilitating feeding programs and small micro-finance programs to make the schools more sustainable.

All of ZOCS work is with community schools which have been set up to help orphans and vulnerable children who are unable to pay for the uniforms and exam fees they need to go to government schools. Without ZOCS intervention many children miss out an education altogether.

They are affiliated with 24 community schools in the Livingstone area, plus 121 others in the Southern region. In order to become affiliated a school must have been in existence for 3/4 years and have registered with the Ministry of Education. They are then eligible for support, but there is only enough funding to support a small number of them.

One very interesting area that ZOCS is involved in is teacher training for the volunteer teachers in the community schools. Government schools provide trained teachers, but in community schools the teachers are usually volunteers so this is a key part of the ZOCS program. They use the same facilities and teaching materials as the government teachers, but classes are carried out at weekends and during school holidays. It’s a great idea, and something I’ve asked for more information about.

Zambezi Sawmills Community School along with some sand collected by the community to build bricks for a new classroom.

Following our discussions I was taken to visit the Zambezi Sawmills school which ZOCS suggested as a first project. It’s just 3kms from the centre of Livingstone and very much a town school. There are three classrooms and a sanitation block based on a small plot of open land which is surrounded by houses. 200 children attend the school in three shifts throughout the day. Grades 1-7 are catered for.

The key needs are a fence to provide the children with security, a second 1 x 3 classroom block, tables and chairs for teachers plus teaching and learning materials.

It’s another very different project to consider. It’s not in a rural area, but it does help some of the most vulnerable children in the community. ZOCS have relationships with multiple schools in the southern region, but their main offices and majority of their work is currently based in and around Lusaka.

So all that now remains is to work out which NGO we want to start working with. I’ve been discussing this with the trustees throughout the week and we are ready to make a decision. I’ll update you all in the next blog post.