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Community
Our teaching and community project evolved due to the lack of free, available and accessible education in Zambia. This finding was due to spending much time in Livingstone researching the various community development programs already in place. Community schools in Livingstone have a great shortage of funds, qualified staff, and classrooms. Community schools are funded and supported by the community with little to no government or privately donated funds provided. Often only half the staff complement are qualified teachers, the rest being community volunteers that have little education themselves but have a desire to see their children get an education at school.
By providing assistance with teaching and building more classrooms we are aiming to provide children in Livingstone with a better quality and quantity of classes. Most of the schools have meager and ill-equipped facilities; it’s very common for there to be one textbook per classroom, but, despite all this there’s a wealth of children with a huge desire to learn. Due to the lack of classrooms and staff versus the amount of children that attend, 'hot seating' is practised. This is when certain grades go to school at certain periods of the day. Lack of regular meals is also a huge problem faced by most of the students at the community schools we work with.
We have used the skills of several qualified teachers to develop our teaching projects into more structured, effective and professional curriculum. We also created the 'Holiday Tutoring Program' at Mwandi, Dambwa & Nakatindi Community Schools, which we now use in all our schools to offer holiday tuition. These projects continue successfully and directly help maintain educating children whilst their schools are closed during holidays, at no cost. We have devoted a lot of time and effort to our 'Adult Literacy' project aiming to help adults attain skills in order to enter employment. Without our lesson plans, basic / intermediate / advanced syllabuses, tutoring, advice and assistance we would not be able to help the large number of people attending these classes.
The volunteer accommodation is locally owned and operated, employing many local Zambians. The kitchen uses Zambian produce whenever it is possible, particularly buying from small scale local establishments to support local industry as much as possible. We encourage our volunteers to utilize Zambian services and tour operators as much as possible, strengthening the local economy whilst on their placements with us. The accommodation is as environmentally friendly as it is possible in Zambia; there is no burning of rubbish (very common in Africa), glass bottles are returned to the bottling plant, plastic bottles are saved and used for a variety of things and there is a compost heap for natural waste.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
