The latest news from ZIGS

2011 has been an exciting and eventful year for all of us connected with the Zambezi International Green School especially as we are now a tangible reality having opened our doors to our first pupils in September. We now look forward to the New Year and hope and pray that we grow from strength to strength.

It was in July that we found the perfect building for the first stage of our project. Within six weeks we transformed the building from an empty shell to a vibrant centre of learning. This was largely due to the hard work and dedication of our amazing staff.

We opened at a difficult time given that September sees the start of the third term in Zambian schools and many parents are reluctant to move their children to a new school at such a time in the academic year. However, despite this we managed to recruit sixteen pupils into our Early Childhood Learning Centre. From small acorns grow great oak trees and even in its one term of operation Zambezi International Green School has established itself as the beacon school across the City of Livingstone.

Despite the tremendous success of our Early Years Learning Centre 2011 ended on a sad note with the untimely passing of Mr David Khomonyane - the Headman we have worked so closely with over the past few years. Mr Khomonyane left behind a widow and six children. We hope that the success of our school and especially the Kazungula campus will be a fitting memorial to our friend and colleague.

As 2012 begins our focus is very much on growth and development. We are currently recruiting pupils for our Early Learning Centre and Grades 1, 2, 3 and 4 at our Flamboyant Lane campus whilst actively seeking an additional building in order to provide for students in Grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 from this time next year. This strategy enables us to continue to grow as a centre of educational excellence and to generate income to invest in the future vision for ZIGS which as our purpose built green school on the banks of the Zambezi.

With our student numbers growing we are in a position to bring on board new members of our team. Depending upon the exact number of pupils enrolling for the new academic year we hope to employ four or five new members of the teaching staff. This will ensure that we meet our promise to parents that all classes will be small with an excellent teacher : pupil ratio. Furthermore, everyone working as a teacher at ZIGS will be qualified as a teacher. Unlike many other private schools in Zambia we will not employ non qualified staff to work in classrooms alongside teachers. We are committed to exemplary standards. One our new teachers’ joining us in January is Mr Aqeel Ahmad – a Mathematics specialist from Pakistan. Aqeel has won prizes for the teaching of Maths in his own country and will be a wonderful addition to the ZIGS increasingly international team of staff and students!

Happy New Year from all at ZIGS!

Zambezi International Green School - Opening Soon!!!

Great news from Zambia! We are close to opening the first phase of our green school here in Zambia. In order to kick start the project we have agreed to rent a building in Livingstone where we are going to open a per-school and nursery section. We have been working with various partners over the past few weeks and things are looking good right now!

Of course our aim is to build our own school on the banks of the Zambezi and we also have good news on that front. After much delay we are now (hopefully) near to securing the title deeds for the land. This is a vital aspect of our project - Madonna's schools project in Malawi collapsed as she failed to gain land rights! All being well we will be opening our secondary section in Sept 2012/Jan 2013 on the banks of the mighty Zambezi River!

Right now we are looking for volunteers to work with us on various aspects of the project. Firstly we are looking for Early Years Learning/ Pre School teachers to work with us at our ZIGS, Livingstone. Qualified teachers looking for a fresh challenge or anyone who fancies a gap year or internship should get in touch. We are not in a postion to pay more than an allowance but can offer the chance to work for a project that will really make a difference in children's lives!

For our purpose built secondary school we seek an archetect with genuine green credentials to work with us in designing the school. It is an exciting opportunity as we can offer the right person a carte blanche in the resepct of design in a genuine wilderness setting. If you know such a person ask them to contact us!!!

Soon we will be recruiting teachers and an array of support staff for ZIGS. Please consider what you might be able to do to help us with this amazing project or pass on this e mail to friends!!!

Thanks for all your support!!!

Contact us through Facebook or thembinkosifoundation@live.co.uk

Phone: 00260 973312390 (Adrian) 00260 978626719 (Betty)

The quality of education in Zambia

The Post, Zambia's biggest selling daily newspaper, carries a story today reporting that the Catholic Church has expressed concern on the quality of education provided in schools. This comes to know surprise to those of us associated with the Thembinkosi Foundation and the Zambezi International Green School.

The newspaper reports that the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) spokesperson Father Paul Samasumo has said that many basic and community schools had been established to enhance universal access to basic education. However, he said this had not matched the required investment in human resource (teachers) and infrastructure thus putting a serious strain on the products of these schools. Fr Samasumo also said most basic and community schools did not have the necessary infrastructure such as science laboratories and pupils in these schools leave school without seeing the inside of one. He said even though there were efforts to improve the quality of education, a lot more needed to be done. Fr Samasumo said there was need to motivate teachers and reduce the teacher pupil ratio which sometimes reached 60 pupils against one teacher.
“Most of us, even politicians they were inspired to be what they are today because of a teacher, but what happens if a class has 60 pupils and the teacher does not even know all of them. There is need to employ more teachers and provide incentives to retain the ones already working. There are many teachers who are walking the streets because they are unemployed,” he said.

This story clearly indicates an underlining problem with well meaning but hugely misguided Millennium Development Goal to establish Universal Primary Education by 2015. Unfortunately this has led to a focus on getting 'bums on seats' rather than a drive to improve the quality of education in Zambia and across the developing world.

He said another area that needed to be looked into was the curriculum in Zambia.
Fr Samasumo said pupils should be able to have skills to survive on when they complete school.
He said pupils should be prepared for the future while in secondary school because not every pupil had the capacity to go to university. Fr Samasumo said pupils should be prepared to work in factories and industries upon completion of school.

In order to bring our Green School in Zambia closer to reality we have relocated our family to Blantyre, Malawi. Although we are still 100's km from the site of our development we are now based in the region and can make regular trips to the site. I, Adrian, have taken a job as a teacher in an international school in order to ensure that we still have an income whilst Betty will make frequent trips to Zambia to advance matters in relation to the project. This will enable us to establish greater continuity in our dealings with the community in Kazungula, Chief Sekute, the district council and other stakeholders.

My recent trip to Zambia

I recently spent two weeks in Zambia over the Easter holidays. The trip was incredibly fruitful and it is certainly true to say that we are a step nearer to fulfilling our dream.

Whilst in Zambia I was priviledged to visit the Kasisi Agricultural College. The agricultural college is part of a wider facility run by the Jesuits which includes a girls secondary school and an orphanage. It truly inspirational place. The agricultural college focuses its attention on organic farming and sustainable development and is a model of what we want to achieve at our school. The main difference being that the college focuses on adult education whereas we will focus upon the education of the young. (although our outreach projects will enable aspects of adult education.) The great news is that the people at Kasisi are willing to provide us with the necessary training and support to ensure that we can emulate their work on the banks of the Zambezi.

I am returning to Zambia in July and I will be spending the entire summer holiday working on developing our school. We are still confident that we can be ready to open in September 2010 but in order to do so we need to step up our fundraising efforts! There are a few 'fires in the oven' at the moment so hopefully ove the coming months we can boost our coffers and then commence building. We will of course be building the school with local materials that are freely available in the locality of the school which will of course minimise the cost of the project. That's the beauty of sustainable development - it makes economic sense as well as environmental sense!

Finally a big thank you to Laura and friends who are climbing Ben Nevis next month in order to rasie funds for the Thembinkosi Foundation and our project to build and sustain a school in Zambia. You can sponsor them in their efforts by visiting our Just Giving page http://www.justgiving.com/thembi... Once again thanks for all your support. It is hugely appreciated!

Sunset over a Zambian Fishing Village

The extraordinary thing about Ngwanzi village is that the villagers do not have any access to running water. The women and children have the duty of fetching water from the river as and when it is required. This task is not only onerous and backbreaking but is incredibly dangerous. Crocodiles lurk in the water and on the river banks and the simple task of fetching water can be a life threatening pursuit. This may sound over dramatic but only last month one of the elderly villagers in the village  was eaten by a crocodile.

Moreover although the life of a fisherman may look idyllic for a young man it is also a life fraught with danger. A young fisherman, and many of them are very young, will face the perils of life on the river. Hippos, as you may know, are responsible for the deaths of more people than any other animal in Africa (besides humans!) and the hippos lurk in the waters of the Zambezi. Get between a hippo and her young and your life is on the line.

Besides these dangers there is the ever present danger of malaria - Africa's biggest killer. The village lacks any form of health care facility. There is not even a simple clinic.

The people of Ngwanzi village may life a happy life for the most part but there is no doubt that access to running water, basic sanitation, electricity, basic health care and education for their children would dramatically improve their lives. The Thembinksi Foundation hopes to make a difference in the lives of these people. By providing education for children and adults, providing access to running water, basic sanitation and health care we hope to make a difference to children like the one's we met in Ngwanzi.

Eathship Living and Sustainable Development

As part of our commitment to the principles of sustainable development the Zambezi International Green School will include many of the principles of Earthship Living. Unlike the Earthships shown in the video we will not be using tyres in the building of our school (as waste tyres are not readily available in the African Bush!) but we will be utilising whatever we can recycle in our natural environment. Furthermore, we intend to adopt many of the principles of Earthship Living. We will harvest and recycle our own water, partly from rain water and partly from the nearby river, and we are committed to generating all of our own energy without any recourse to fossil fuels. In fact most of our power will be generated through the use of water with perhaps some solar energy where necessary. The reason for this is primarily that through the effective use of water we can be 86% efficient in generating power compared to the approximate 16% efficiency of solar panels!

Permaculture in Africa

In this video clip Bill Mollison surveys some of the permaculture projects he helped to establish in Africa. The clip features a grade school with a schoolyard garden that produces food for the children's lunches and provides a tool for teaching the techniques to the students, most of whom come from farming families, an African plant guildcompost pile and beekeeping.

It is our aim to emulate these practices and other aspects of permaculture at ZIS. All students will study Agriculture at our school and will be empowered to use sustainable methods of farming in their adult lives. Moreover, ZIS will offer a programme of adult education to the communities with whom we will co-exist. Our students, teachers and all others involved in our projects will work together to experiment and develop 'best practice' in sustainable farming.

Rebranding - we're now ZIGS!

We've changed our name! The working title for our school is now the Zambezi International Green School. We've added 'Green' to our name to reflect our commitment to green technology and environmentalism. We think ZIGS has a good ring to it!