Month: June 2012

Well, we’re back where computers work and we have regular Internet access!

On February 2 of this year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our first income generating group – the Malambo Women’s Club. As February is the hunger month in Zambia, when last year’s harvest is eaten up and this year’s harvest not yet in, it was appropriate to celebrate with food. We held a food competition of traditional village cooking. FABULOUS!  Our judges did an excellent job, and the prizes were enormous fish, brought from Siavonga.

See some of the celebrations, with a video of Mirriam celebrating of Mirriam celebrating! Mirriam, one of our original members who in her mid-eighties is rearing her grandchildren, makes her income by being a member of this applique group as well as being a member of one of our chicken rearing groups. In the background you can hear the crowd ululating.

The Malambu School will be getting electricity! After many years of trying to find funding ourselves, the new government will be providing electricity to the school as part of a new plan to have all schools in Zambia electrified by 2030. We will need to install electrical wiring in the classrooms and teachers houses, and then the electric company will connect the electricity from the main line to the school, install the transformer and connect the electricity to all the buildings. Each building will have a prepaid meter. As part of this process, we are also getting a new computer lab and library, so now they are pegging the building and next week they are going to dig the foundations. We expect the work to be completed by October of this year, so by the end of the year we should have a new building and electricity! Though this is Africa, so it might take a bit longer, but the news is positive and we are really excited!

Isn’t that wonderful news?! We are one of the first schools to benefit from this programme. As a result of this, the possibilities for education in this area are now endless: night classes for adults, teachers preparing for lessons in the evenings by their new lights, and on and on!