Mike & Jan's Great Escape: RETURN TO "WORK"

We have been back in Ndola over a month now and beside settling into our new home, we have both been getting very involved in working with Beyond Ourselves of Zambia, know as BOZ. We have joined a team with Dan the director, his wife Melissa and Emily. Dan and Melissa have worked with Beyond Ourselves for two years but have worked in Zambia at various times during the last ten years. They have an amazing knowledge and understanding of life in Zambia as well as how it is changing and developing. Emily has been here for just over a year but knows so much about how the schools operate that it’s great working with her. We have learned so much from them all. Malcolm, Emily’s husband, works at Simba, one of the international schools in Ndola but is very much a part of BOZ. Both families have young children so we get to spend time with a younger generation which is really nice. We feel really lucky to be part of the group, both professionally and socially.

Mary, Kawama's Head Teacher leading a Staff Meeting

Beyond Ourselves partners 3 schools in the Copperbelt Province, one in Ndola, Janna Community School, and two in Kitwe, approximately 60 Kms away. They are Greater Joy Community School and the one that we have both been more involved with so far, Kawama Community School.

We both drive out to Kawama on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays each week. Jan is working with the Head Teacher to develop her leadership skills. Unlike in the UK, there is no training for the Heads. She is also concentrating on the early years development of both teachers and the very young children.

Working in the small groups

Jan has introduced a few things that are so obvious to people and especially teachers in the UK but don’t seem to happen in the community schools in Zambia. One of these has been dividing the early years into groups in the afternoon and providing toys and roleplay equipment such as dressing up items. Beyond Ourselves had some resources already but other items have been collected locally from recycled plastic pots and anything that we think can be used. The teachers now can work in small groups instead of the whole class of 30 in each of the nursery and reception classes. (For you teachers this is 30 children with 1 teacher and no support staff at all)

Building Towers with "Jenga" Blocks

Many of the children do not have toys at home so it is an amazing sight when the children play. Both of us have spent time with the children in the afternoons teaching them to play as all children in the UK seem to do so naturally. We found a “Jenga” box with all the wooden blocks. In the UK children turn so naturally to building towers as high as they can then watching them fall over. Here it just didn’t happen until I sat down with them and was showing them how much fun it was. Now they all like beating each other with the highest tower.

Oi!! Where is that delivery you promised 3 hours ago

Things that did come naturally though was when Jan found some roleplay clothes and then purchased some toy hard hats from the local supermarket. A few of the boys quickly put on the hard hats, yellow fluorescent jackets and then one picked up a playing card, put it to his ear and was directing the others with his “Mobile Phone”

The girls go straight for the dolls and teddy bears and invariably grab a piece of “chitenga” material (this is the brightly coloured material sold locally here) then strap the doll to their back in the same way that all babies and young children are carried here. We have noticed that the boys are starting to do the same thing which is encouraging for the future. It is really amazing watching the class in the groups with some playing with the different resources while some are with the teacher. After a short while they rotate so each group has a turn at all the things on offer.

Ther "Babies" go straight on the back, African fashion

The nursery and reception use the Church hall and as the hall is in use every evening then ALL resources including the toys, roleplay items and blackboards, stands, chalk etc is taken in from the heads office each morning and returned there after school each day. The only furniture for the children are a few adult sized plastic chairs and some benches. It’s amazing that Nursery aged children happily sit on a chair, lean over to write on the bench and manage to copy letters and numbers from the board. The very young children have excellent balance, are incredibly independent and never seem to fall or trip over as some of our children would.

Now we have writing boards

Yes we all got that one right!!!

Concentration

Perfecting Numbers

I have been getting involved in the maintenance and am trying to get the new ablution block completed and ready to be used. As with lots of things we are finding in Zambia, things take a lot longer than they seem to in the UK.

Also to help Jan and the schools I try to make some resources and have made lots of mini “white boards” only here they are black so that the children can practise writing in chalk and then it is easy to clean. I initially made 50 and painted them black for the early years but the whole school has seen them and we now have requests for many more.

The children in all the schools have also been practising a lot of dancing etc as they all seem to be part of the celebrations for the National Independence Day on 24^th October. We are also looking forward to that as we can join in with what ever is happening in Ndola.

Practising Drumming

Dancing

When not at Kawama we both have some admin type jobs to deal with but I am also involved in trying to get all the information on the feeding programme. Every child in all three schools is given a hot meal each day. This is usually a meal of chicken, meat or sausage with vegetables and Nshima, the local starch. On a couple of days they have beans instead of meat and may have rice instead of Nshima. These are all paid for by Beyond Ourselves and with the Kwacha in free fall, prices are rising quickly so I am trying to get the weekly costs sorted so that hopefully Beyond Ourselves can increase the payment.

I am also involved with trying to help 4 members of the kitchen staff at Janna School set up an Ntemba. This is a small local shop selling a variety of items that the neighbours would want to buy. I can only compare it to a small corner shop in the UK except these are tiny, maybe just the size of a large cupboard at the end of someone’s garden that is stocked with fresh produce if they have it or small items they buy from markets and re sell.