Lu standing with the Chilongozi staff
Chilongozi School is situated in an extremely rural area within the Luangwa Valley which is inaccessible for 6 months of the year. On our first visit in 2002 there was only one teacher for 200 children, the classrooms had no roofs and there were very few desks and chairs and no books. There are currently 350 pupils and 6 teachers of which Sausage Tree pays for three of them.
Lisa trying the new bore hole
The school now teaches students in grade 8 and 9. This extension enables children to stay at school longer. The nearest secondary school is so far away that they would have to board and many struggle to afford the cost of boarding.
The increasing numbers come at a cost though. There are not enough classrooms or teachers so teaching is done on a rotational basis. Grade 5-9 start school at 7.20 am and finish at lunch. After lunch grades 1 -4 attend school and finish at 4.30. A very long day for the teachers!
In 2008/2009 we built a new teachers house with the help from the village who made all the bricks. There are currently 6 teachers at the school but only 4 teachers’ houses. The staff without housing have to rent in the local village which is far from perfect and puts extra strain on the teachers, sometimes they leave and go back to their native villages.
Head Teachers house built by Sausage Tree
We visited the school for the 4 time in July 2011 and it was great to see how far it has come since 2002. The classrooms looked good and had all our resources. Their initial vegetable plot had burnt down in a bush fire but they were keen to show us the replacement one which they had positioned near to their new water tank. Elephants are a problem in this area so they are restricted as to what they grow but they are doing a good job of it which is encouraging. Lisa is keen to start the same vegetable scheme as at Chiwawatala thanks to the support of Conservation Science Africa as this will provide the children with an important source of vegetables which are few and far between!
3 teachers sponsored by Sausage Tree
The inaccessibility of Chilongozi makes it harder to initiate and manage schemes, but projects that we are considering would be to provide electric fencing around the school so that they can develop the vegetable plots without the interference of elephants, and to initiate a tree planting scheme. During our visit we also provided funds to enable them to participate in the district sports day.
Current and ongoing projects
- Sausage Tree helps pay for the employment of 3 teachers. The government now pays for 3 teacher’s salaries, bringing the total number to 6.
- In 2008 Sausage Tree supplied £3200 worth of new text books.
- Provision of stationary, educational resources and books.
- Provision of funds for the district sports competition twice a year.
Future projects
- Install electric fencing around the school / garden. This will elephant proof it so that they can plant a greater variety of vegetables. Currently they are limited to only vegetables that elephants don’t like and there are only very few!
- Extend the water system to move it closer to school.
- Tree planting scheme.
- Providing grants that would allow some of the growing number of orphaned and vulnerable children to attend primary and secondary school.
- Building new teachers houses. There are currently only four teachers houses. Those without a house either have to share or rent in the nearest village.
- More reading and writing resources.
