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Teachers houses …
 
We have started work on our 5 year building project,
the first teachers house at Kawaza has now been finished
and work is about to start on the 2nd house at Kawaza
and the house at Nsefu, both of these should be finished
by the beginning of September.
Classrooms …
Work is now starting on the classroom block for Nsefu
Basic School. When complete, Nsefu School will have
gone from 5 to 8 classrooms and they will then start
grade 8. A big leap from the sad school that Jo first
found a couple of years ago. The last project we have
slated for this year is a classroom block at Kapita
Community School. Kapita was established in late 2005
and they now have 6 classes (more than 200 students!!).
They are currently holding classes in the storeroom
that was built last year and a grass thatched structure,
the classroom block will mean big changes at the school
and is one of the first steps to getting Kapita approved
as a government school. The community members who look
after the school are going to build a teacher's house
this year which will allow them to get a government
trained teacher in January 2008.
The new community school, Katapilla, has now opened.
The community worked very hard to get a classroom built
and they are now running two nursery classes, with 90
students. They will start Grade 1 classes in January.
The response from the community has been overwhelming.
They have clearly realized that we are determined to
help get their kids through school and so are now contributing
to the development of these fledgling schools enthusiastically.
These community schools came about after Jo was told
that nearly 1000 kids in the Chiefdom were turned away
from Nsefu and Kawaza in 2005 due to the lack of spaces.
Reforest Nsefu….
We launched our Reforest Nsefu project in July, with
the first planting of 220 trees. The seedlings included
fruit trees, fast growing indigenous trees (which are
used for firewood, building, etc), and slow growing
indigenous trees (which can be used for timber in the
future). The first planting went very well, Kawaza Basic
School planted a hundred trees and the rest were distributed
to community members who attended the trainings. We
had two fantastic trainers, Donald and Whiteson from
Chunyu Nursery, who taught the attendees about conservation,
uses of the different trees, and how to plant and maintain
them.
Reforest Nsefu is our effort toward offsetting the
carbon we produce as a company and also helping to reduce
the effects of deforestation in the rural areas. We
hope that through continued efforts we will become a
carbon neutral company.
Donations
We are still trying to raise money to complete all the
building projects for this year. You can now donate
online in the States (through Generosity in Action),
and our online donation facility in the UK will be set
up by the end of the week and I will include a link
in next week’s Its Monday. The UK donation system
will be able to process donation in GBP, Euros, and
USD.
 
Lastly, we want to say a huge thank you to all you generous
people that have already donated. We have already accomplished
a lot this year and your contributions make it possible
for us to make these improvements at the schools and
to make a huge difference in the lives of the students.
In addition to all the wonderful school supplies we
receive from guests (which always go over very well
with the schools!) we have also received specific donations
to install solar panels at Nsefu school, repair and
reinstall the panels at Kawaza School (which were mildly
damaged when the roof blew off last year), 8 bicycles
for the schools and a home based care project, and a
new wheelchair for Mwila Phiri. And now, thanks to Rotary
International, each of the 4 schools will have a new
borehole by the beginning of September.
Thank you again to all of our supporters
and make sure to keep up to date with all of the Kawaza
news on www.kawaza.org.
Cheers,
Amanda
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