Education
Education is the key to escaping poverty. Every child deserves at least that chance in life.
When we first visited Zambia, most schools had no books, and there were no book shops and no libraries where books could be found. We therefore started bringing books out to Zambia from Ireland and donating them to local schools. In 2014, Catherine Daka of Graceland School in Pamodzi told us that if we could only do one thing for Zambia, it would be to bring literacy to Zambia. That advice has inspired our work in education ever since. It is at the core of what we do.
Schools Support
Most schools in Zambia are under-resourced. Most schools have no books. Many schools do not even have a secure roof or glass in their windows. Every child deserves at least the chance of education. This is what we do.;
We collect books, bookshelves, laptop computers and school resources in Ireland and we deliver them to Zambia where we share them out among many schools.
We help to establish school libraries, where children can come to read a book or to borrow a book from their own school.
We send our librarians to visit schools in an outreach programme so that our librarians meet school teachers and pupils to introduce to them the opportunities of reading and literacy.
We encourage and organise reading competitions and reading clubs in schools.
We lend books on a rotating basis, to many schools in the Ndola area.
We lend laptop computers to schools so that pupils even in a school that may not have electricity, can have a chance to use, and to learn how to use a computer.
We provide training in literacy and teaching skills to Zambian teachers at our annual teacher-training conferences.
All books, bookshelves, laptop computers and other materials sent to Zambia are donated by supporters, free of charge, so that no money raised by the charity is ever spent to acquire these items. We are eternally grateful for a wide network of supporters in this regard.
Teacher Skills Training
Many teachers in Zambia do not have the benefit of a good education themselves, and may not have had access to books either during their training or in their work. As a result, when we provide books to schools, we often find that the skills needed to effectively teach children how to read, are lacking.
We conduct teacher-training seminars every summer for Zambian teachers who have access to our books, with Irish teachers and educational psychologists delivering targeted short-courses in topics such as phonics, sight-words, learning to read with rhythm and rhyme, first words, story-telling, classroom management and learning to write.
We also provide an intense course in basic computers and IT skills, where teachers can learn how to navigate a computer keyboard and desktop, and learn the basic operation of Ms Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
Teachers who complete these courses, are then eligible to apply for access to share our resources of books and educational materials and our stock of laptop computers, subject to availability.
Attendance at our teacher-training workshops is free of charge, and entirely funded by the volunteers who travel out from Ireland each year.
Our next courses for teachers will be held in August 2025 in Zambia. Contact us if you think that you could volunteer with us to come to Zambia.
Libraries
Most people in Zambia have no opportunity to read a book, and never had. We want to change that. We want to give every child in Zambia (and their parents) the opportunity to read a book, to better their education or to simply open their imagination and their minds to places and things that they have never seen.
Each shipping container full of teaching materials which we send to Zambia, only gets a one-way ticket. When the container has been emptied, we cut windows and doors in it, and we convert it into a library.
We have already established two public libraries in shipping containers, being one in Chipulukusu and one in George township, both on the outskirts of Ndola. We are currently working on opening a third such container-library this year in Kawama.
In August 2024, we completed the construction of an architect-designed large public library in Chipulukusu. It opened in November 2024 on a pilot basis, ahead of a full opening in early 2025, when it will be the only one of its kind for hundreds of kilometers.
Each of our libraries has been placed, constructed and run by the generosity of donations from supporters in Ireland.
All of our libraries are open and free of charge to all who are interested, regardless of their backround, personal attributes or education.
As well as having a good stock of books, our libraries all have a stock of computers where people can come to learn how to use a computer, under instruction from our librarians.
Our new purpose-built library building in Chipulukusu has a computer lab, but due to the collapse of the national electricity supply system in Zambia, it is not yet operational. We are currently trying to raise funds to install Solar Power, so that we can get this computer lab up and running.
We intend to deliver to the children and people of Zambia, the best education they can achieve.
We are always seeking good quality children’s books and school books and teaching materials and laptops, so please contact us if you can support.
