Community Schools in Zambia
My name is Kasuba Nicole Kaisa and I am a gender activist from Lusaka Zambia who works to promote sustainable, inclusive and equitable quality education so as to achieve lifelong learning opportunities for all. I was born and raised in one of the most primitive rural areas in Zambia and coming from such a background, I know how extremely difficult it is for people who come from primitive communities to support community schools and the children who attend these schools.
Growing up, I remember how some of my friends suddenly stopped attending school because they either got married off if they were female, or they started to go out hunting if they were male simply because their parents could not afford to support their education, and neither could the school. However, my parents always made me understand that I was privileged to have two working parents. who were able to provide my basic school needs, and that it was my duty to appreciate their struggles to educate my 6 siblings and I by getting good grades to secure my future and I believe that these are the values that have always motivated me even as a leader.
This, among many other factors compelled me to found an NGO called MfumuKhazi Foundation Zambia, which works with community schools to promote girls educational rights by ensuring that we give support to the children that attend these schools, whilst prioritizing the girl child.
I realized that there are over 3,000 community schools across Zambia, which are run by parents and depend on the community for contributions to sustain their operations. However, most communities struggle with aiding these schools because over 64% of Zambians earn less than $1 a day, which is below the poverty line ($1.5 a day). This leaves community schools vulnerable and under-funded.
The mission of my organization is to make education sustainable, and accessible to all, by aiding community-run schools with school supplies. Zambia currently has an estimate of over 800,000 children who have so far dropped out of these schools. due to lack of proper school supplies. These statistics prompted my organization to recruit ambassadors who would help promote an initiative that was specifically pioneered to foster education in community schools called #ShareASupply.
This initiative engages the public by allowing surplus units to give whatever school supplies they can (old textbooks, reading books, pens, pencils, erasers, note books, among many other materials that they have packed away in their homes and no longer have use for) and once given to us, we identify deficit units and supply them with these school materials. Pupils who complete school equally hand us their school supplies at will, which we in turn channel to the initiative making it sustainable because of the circuit of recycling that it creates.
Through this initiative, we have been able to provide over 12,000 school supplies to over 4,000 pupils across Lusaka.
I find so much joy in working with these kids and giving them hope just so they feel that there are people out there that still care for them to complete their education. Despite the many challenges that I have faced being a female pioneering such a complex agenda, my driving force is the picture that I envision in my mind of the ultimate goal. What will birth from all this and the path that I am creating especially for young girls who come from remote communities such as the one I grew up in.
Global Changemakers has an unshakeable mission of supporting youth to create positive change in their communities. A global pioneer in supporting youth-led development, they have trained youth from over 180 countries and provided grants to over 360 youth-led projects, which have had a combined impact on over 6,2 million people — www.global-changemakers.net
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article belong to the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or Global Changemakers.
