LearnAsOne

Today I’d like to share a photo story of how Simakakata Community School has developed since we first visited in May 2009. Thank you for your ongoing support. As you can see, it’s making a massive difference!

This was Simakakata Community School in May 2009

A borrowed farmhouse with no doors.

The classrooms were dark, the roof was rotting and regularly leaked...

…and desks were lacking.

The community came together and told me they needed a new school.

Vincent and his friends had already built over 60,000 bricks by hand, but they couldn’t afford raw materials such as cement, doors and roofing sheets.

So we asked the LearnAsOne community to help fundraise. And you responded!

You raised enough money to buy the raw materials needed to build a classroom.

Meanwhile George, the headmaster at Simakakata Community School, had asked CARE International for their support too.

We we’re absolutely delighted when George told us that CARE had agreed to fund a 3-classroom block. The community built the block themselves.

Lessons started in the new block in November 2010.

Over the Christmas holidays the foundations were dug for the fourth classroom.

Then the brick laying began.

The community continue to collect sand so more bricks can be made. It’s extremely hard work.

Good progress has been made, but construction slowed over the winter months while the community plant their crops for the year.

Meanwhile lessons continue in the farmhouse. Note how the desks have all been pushed into one area. This is due to the roof leaking during the rainy season.

What happens next?

The community will soon finish building the fourth classroom. They will then need two more classrooms and six teachers’ houses to complete the school.

If you would like to help to buy the raw materials needed – remember, the community will build the school themselves – you can create a 40 minute fundraising campaign. That’s where you spend 40 minutes fundraising in any way you like.

Why 40 minutes? Click the button below to find out and learn more about the campaign. Thank you!

What is the 40 minute fundraise?
In Zambia a lesson lasts for 40 minutes. Will you fundraise for 40 minutes to fund new classrooms and teachers’ houses at Simakakata Community School? You can jump, busk, run, bake and much, much more. Learn more >

The old schoolhouse is still in use, but for how long can the classes stay there?

We’re just back from a visit to the primary school at Simakakata, a rural community in Kalomo district, Zambia. The school was set up by the community three years ago. Before it began, there was nowhere for the children of the 600 families living in the area to study. The nearest government schools are in Kalomo (7km away), which is simply too far for children as young as six to walk every day.

Simakakata is very poor. Most people here are subsistence farmers, and when they do manage to grow enough extra crops to sell, they are often ripped off by grain merchants and left with no food or money for the winter.

George, the headmaster at Simakakata, has a dream. He wants to create a permanent, government supported school here, with modern classrooms and facilities which will give both the children and adults of Simakakata a chance to gain a basic education. If George’s vision can be accomplished, the entire area will benefit: educated children can earn more money to help raise their families from poverty; primary educated mothers have better cared for chidren; and educated farmers can learn new growing techniques and get a better price for their crops.

Grade 2 children learning maths

It’s estimated that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Simakakata is between 15-20%, and many children here – no one really knows how many – are orphans as a result. A good education will significantly reduce the chance that the pupils of Simakakata will contract HIV. There are many other health benefits, infants learn through drama exercises the importance of washing their hands and boiling water before drinking it.

Over the last year, three classrooms have been built at Simakakata, with a fourth underway. As a direct result, the government has sent three new teachers along with text books and learning materials, and the pass rate for Grade 7 pupils has already doubled. 50% of the pupils with a 600 or higher mark in their Grade 7 exams last year were girls.

You can tell how happy the people here are with their school – not only is enrolment up year on year, nearly all the children are wearing uniforms this year. That’s a clear sign that their parents have been convinced to invest what little they have in their children’s schooling, an attitude change that cannot be underestimated.

It’s not enough.

Edwin teaches English to the Grade 7 class in the new classroom block.

Two classes are still being taught in the dirty, dilapidated old farmhouse LearnAsOne found George in last year. The owners have written another letter to the school, telling them that they must vacate the premises by the end of the month. George is pleading for more time, but what he urgently needs is two more classrooms.

With those buildings, Simakakata school will be able to take pupils up to Grade 8 and the end of their primary education. Many pupils drop out of school at the end of Grade 7, because their parents cannot afford to send them to Kalomo.

As the school becomes more successful, it will attract more investment from the government and the community will be able to support and develop it themselves. What they need next is just under £3,800 to buy the raw materials for the fifth classroom.

Please help LearnAsOne to realise George’s dream.

Children at the pre-school in Good Hope.

This is the second post written by Adam Oxford following his recent trip to Simakakata.

Thanks to a chance encounter with an administrator from Care International last Monday, my wife, Tamsin, opened a nursery for the people rural of Simakakata in Kalomo District, Southern Zambia.

It my first day back at Simakakata Community School, finding out what’s changed over the year and a half since I last visited. Classes were quiet – the children spent most of the day clearing the dust and overgrowth that had built up over Christmas – and I spent much of the day catching up with Headmaster George and learning about the problems he still faces. Just as I was leaving, a man called Boyd from Care arrived – also to check on the progress the school has been making (excellent, in case you asked. Since last year, the Grade 7 pass rate has doubled).

Boyd asked George if he’d be interested in a project to build a pre-school playground using locally sourced materials and recycled tyres. It wouldn’t cost much, and Boyd believed he may have some funding left over from a similar project further north that he could use.

“Not at the moment,” replied George, “We had a nursery school, but the teachers were recruited from the community and had no training, so they didn’t really know what they were doing and eventually left. We have a room and equipment at the church hall, but it is not being used right now.”

I asked George why a pre-school was important, when building the primary seemed to be the priority.

“One of the big problems we have is that when children start Grade 1 (at age 6), they are not ready,” he explained. “They speak no English (the lingua franca in Zambia) and don’t know what school is for. Many of them have never held a pencil before, and cry when we tell them how to hold it. Often they struggle from an early age, and then they stop coming. With a pre-school, we can help the children and the parents as well to understand what school is for and how they will benefit in the long run, and the children won’t start Grade 1 already behind those from urban areas.”

In order to make the pre-school work, George is convinced that he needs to hire a professionally trained and committed specialist teacher. He’s done the sums, and reckons he would have to charge families around 45,000kwacha (£6) per term, but because the local subsistence farmers don’t understand the benefit, they are unwilling to pay.

“It will cost us a million kwacha per term to hire a teacher,” he said, “If we could just get it going and people see the benefit, I’m sure enough children would come.”

The church building that will house the new nursery at Simakakata.

By a happy and strange co-incidence, just before I left for Zambia my wife gave me £200 to pass on to George. She had an unforeseen windfall last year, and wanted to give some of the money to Simakakata. After buying some Christmas presents for the children there (shoes for some of the ones who had to walk in the rain barefoot), there was about £150 left over – which is almost exactly one million kwacha.

I’m not going to ask George to dedicate the new nursery to Tamsin, but the money will subsidise it for at least the first two terms by supplementing the fees of those who can pay to send their children here. George is convinced that after two terms, the whole community will understand why the pre-school is important, and be more willing to contribute some of their slim funds towards it. That’s the plan, at least – if it works, it’ll show how a little really can go a long way in this kind of development.

Tamsin has set up a fundraising campaign to raise more money the nursery, as well as the fifth classroom at the main school. If you’d like to help the children of Simakakata please make a donation using the button below.