Construction of 1 x 3 Classroom block at Nkhuzyeni Primary School in Zambia
Date Published:
My Wish is to Build a 1 x 3 Classroom Block at Nkhuzyeni Primary School
Nkhuzyeni primary school is one of the rural schools located in the valley chiefdom of Nsefu, Mambwe district in eastern province of Zambia and working with Rising Fountains Development Programme (RFDP) (www.risingfountains.org)
The school started in the year 2008 as an intervention to the prolonged absence of the learners from the existing schools due to the prolonged flooding situations. During the rainy season, January to march, the district receives a lot of running water from the higher lands and this makes some of the areas like the areas surrounding this school flooded. It is this annual event of floods that was making a lot of learners to abscond classes as they were not able to cross the flooded areas to attend classes at the nearest school for almost 3 months. This meant that from January, the time when schools open in Zambia to April, most learners would just sit at home and only report to school in May, when the schools open for the second term. It’s this challenge that prompted the community to start this school so that the learners don’t lose out in terms of learning and acquiring basic education.
At that particular time, the community organized themselves in such a manner that they built some makeshift structures which are being used as learning spaces and also constructed some temporal pit latrines for the learners and teachers.
Some learned members of the community volunteered themselves to be teaching the learners and the community was asked to be helping the volunteers with some in kind wages at the end of every month. The school operated on this system from then until 2019 when the government took it over by sending one government deployed teacher. Currently, the school has 3 government deployed teachers and 2 volunteers without any permanent classroom space.
Even if the school has existed this long, the major challenge has been lacking of permanent and conducive learning and teaching spaces (Classrooms), lack of permanent pit latrines, desks, tables just to list a few.
Lack of classroom accommodation has impacted the learning process negatively in the sense that during the rainy season, lessons have to be cut short as most of the makeshift classes leak. Therefore, providing classrooms for the learners would be the biggest game changer for them as well as the teaching staff.
The school catchment area is surrounded by people whose occupation is farming. However, the farming activities have not been yielding good results due to the flooding itself as most of the crops grown by these farmers are washed away by the floods. Besides floods, the area is also in the game management area closer to South Luangwa national park one of the best tourist destinations in Africa. Human-wildlife conflict is also more less like annual ceremony in this area. If the crops are not damaged by the floods, then they are eaten by these wild animals (elephants to be specific). This now leaves most of the families without enough food for home consumption. Lack of food is affecting the performance and attendance of classes by most of the learners.
This school has been adopted by RFDP Zambia. Rising Fountains Development Programme works to improve the health and livelihoods of Women and Children in Zambia. We are currently implementing our projects in Eastern and Northwestern Provinces of Zambia. Looking forward to hearing from you and potentially working with you to Build the 1 x 3 Classroom at Nkhuzyeni Primary School in Zambia. We encourage you to visit our website www.risingfountains.org
Nkhuzyeni primary school is one of the rural schools located in the valley chiefdom of Nsefu, Mambwe district in eastern province of Zambia and working with Rising Fountains Development Programme (RFDP) (www.risingfountains.org)
The school started in the year 2008 as an intervention to the prolonged absence of the learners from the existing schools due to the prolonged flooding situations. During the rainy season, January to march, the district receives a lot of running water from the higher lands and this makes some of the areas like the areas surrounding this school flooded. It is this annual event of floods that was making a lot of learners to abscond classes as they were not able to cross the flooded areas to attend classes at the nearest school for almost 3 months. This meant that from January, the time when schools open in Zambia to April, most learners would just sit at home and only report to school in May, when the schools open for the second term. It’s this challenge that prompted the community to start this school so that the learners don’t lose out in terms of learning and acquiring basic education.
At that particular time, the community organized themselves in such a manner that they built some makeshift structures which are being used as learning spaces and also constructed some temporal pit latrines for the learners and teachers.
Some learned members of the community volunteered themselves to be teaching the learners and the community was asked to be helping the volunteers with some in kind wages at the end of every month. The school operated on this system from then until 2019 when the government took it over by sending one government deployed teacher. Currently, the school has 3 government deployed teachers and 2 volunteers without any permanent classroom space.
Even if the school has existed this long, the major challenge has been lacking of permanent and conducive learning and teaching spaces (Classrooms), lack of permanent pit latrines, desks, tables just to list a few.
Lack of classroom accommodation has impacted the learning process negatively in the sense that during the rainy season, lessons have to be cut short as most of the makeshift classes leak. Therefore, providing classrooms for the learners would be the biggest game changer for them as well as the teaching staff.
The school catchment area is surrounded by people whose occupation is farming. However, the farming activities have not been yielding good results due to the flooding itself as most of the crops grown by these farmers are washed away by the floods. Besides floods, the area is also in the game management area closer to South Luangwa national park one of the best tourist destinations in Africa. Human-wildlife conflict is also more less like annual ceremony in this area. If the crops are not damaged by the floods, then they are eaten by these wild animals (elephants to be specific). This now leaves most of the families without enough food for home consumption. Lack of food is affecting the performance and attendance of classes by most of the learners.
This school has been adopted by RFDP Zambia. Rising Fountains Development Programme works to improve the health and livelihoods of Women and Children in Zambia. We are currently implementing our projects in Eastern and Northwestern Provinces of Zambia. Looking forward to hearing from you and potentially working with you to Build the 1 x 3 Classroom at Nkhuzyeni Primary School in Zambia. We encourage you to visit our website www.risingfountains.org
