April 2022
Newsletter
Welcome to 2022!
After a wet and sticky rainy season, we are now moving into one of the most beautiful times in the valley. As the river recedes, the land remains verdant and green, and the temperatures start to pleasantly cool.
We hope that 2022 is going to be a year of expansion and renewal, as we continue to find new and exciting ways to support education and gender equality, whilst the world seems to be finally moving beyond the shadow of covid.
Most importantly, as travel opens up again, we cannot wait to welcome back old and new friends alike!
Digital Learning
Learning in rural Zambia has always been a challenge. Overcrowded classrooms (with sometimes up to 80 children), demotivated teachers (many of whom are not paid), and a lack of resources from chalk to text books, all contribute to the problem.
On top of that, as universities and institutions begin to rely more heavily on online learning, children in disadvantaged areas such as South Luangwa are increasingly left behind. This is where Digitruck comes in.
Kindly sponsored by the Patel Family, and in partnership with Close the Gap and iSchool, Digitruck utilises digital tablets to teach children creatively. Instead of traditional chalk boards, Digitruck provides the flexibility for children to learn in or outside the classroom, to hook up to projector screens for large class learning, or to individually work through tasks using their own tablet.
Working with Mwabu’s interactive learning platform, we selected one whole grade at Chiwawatala Primary School, to trial the programme.
Baseline testing was taken to analyse where all of the learners sat before undertaking the programme. In addition coaches were asked for feedback on their biggest challenges after 4 weeks.
- By monitoring progress throughout the programme, our Digitruck project will allow us to:
- Understand the biggest challenges students face and target these areas for greater support
- Provide creative solutions to improve understanding of tricky subjects
- Insure an overall improved learner experience by allowing students more freedom and access to more exciting content
We opted to start with Grade 6 in our pilot scheme as this will give the students one whole year to come to grips with the new style content, before continuing with the programme into Grade 7, their important exam year.
We’re confident that after 2 years of the Digitruck programme, we will see learners knowledge and capabilities surge, better preparing them for the challenges of secondary school, and providing far greater understanding of Information Communication Technology.
Sponsorship student and Girls Club member Maureen gives a speech at our event
How Can You Help?
To be a part of the expansion of this amazing new project, Africa Hope Fund have offered to match up to $10,000 in donations raised here!
Meet the Digitruck team - Elina, Moffat and Willard, all previously sponsored Project Luangwa students, and our newest manager, Mubita Simataa
Edulution
As we look to the future with our new Digitruck project, we're also keen to consolidate the amazing work carried out in Edulution this year. After two years of covid, children's learning has clearly suffered, and we're so fortunate to have programmes like Edulution, which is having such a huge impact in bridging the gap.
Despite less time in school and disruptions to school calendars, for those students in our Edulution programme we have continued to see improvements of 36% in mathematics, and a general average improvement of over 10% across all subjects.
For the 1,200 children in our Edulution centres, the impact has been truly remarkable.
This year we have also been heavily focused on improving attendance and we've seen record numbers at all of our sites over February and March.
The New Foundation Programme for School Leavers
Sponsorship is such a major element of what we do. We currently sponsor 131 children at secondary school, and 51(!) students at University. The incredible generosity and altruism of so many donors in allowing these aspiring young people to realise their potential, is truly humbling. We have faced some real challenges with emails bouncing or ending up in junk mail recently, which has often caused major problems in communication, but please let us reiterate how grateful we are to everyone who has sponsored a student.
One area where we felt we could really improve is in better preparing school leavers for college and University. As such this year we are trialling an exciting new Foundation Programme. 12 students have been selected to take part, and they will be receiving additional help in improving English and IT Skills, as well as learning important life lessons such as time management, financial planning and organisational skills. We have had wonderful support from four UK guests who have been giving up their time to help the students over the last couple of weeks, and in May we will be welcoming a teaching post-grad from Australia who will be heading up the project for the rest of the year.
As part of their lessons in social responsibility, the foundation students visit Katapila Primary school to hand out donated school supplies to the children
Kebby goes to Japan!
As we continue to build on the success of our recent school leavers, we're also thrilled to see one of our University Graduates - Kebby N'gona - who selected to travel to Japan as part of a University exchange!
With the kind help of his sponsors, the Bachelors, Kebby will be spending a few months attending the prestigious Soka University in Hachioji. For a young man from Mfuwe, this opportunity is truly life changing, and a huge well done to Kebby for showing such initiative and motivation with his successful application.
Menstrual Hygiene
With the support of Kim Stevens and Jim Beckley, and the Rotary Club, we carried out large Ufulu drives at Matula and Nsefu Primary School last month.
Lack of access to safe and clean menstrual hygiene products is a huge factor in keeping girls out of school, and a major barrier to gender equality.
With the support of rotary we were able to deliver 750 pads to 150 girls, with more planned later in the year. This equates to up to 7,500 saved school days.
Gender Clubs
The other key element in our gender equality programme is our Gender Clubs. The clubs have been such a vital tool throughout the pandemic, giving us a unique insight into the real pressures and stresses that the children and young adults have been feeling over the past two years.
With the incredible support of Global Sojourns Giving Circle, Fwilane, our Head of Gender Support, will be travelling to Livingstone next month to meet up with other Gender Club mentors from across southern Africa.
Stay tuned to hear all about her adventures, and the fantastic new ideas it will bring to our Gender Clubs.
Thank you Rotary!
International Women's Day
Celebrating International Women's Day is always a big part of our annual calendar. This year the theme was - Gender Equality Today, for a Sustainable Tomorrow.
Events such as this help to shine a spotlight on issues of Gender Equality, and continue to raise awareness. The event built further on our 16 Days of Activism held at the end of 2021, and our work to help stop gender based violence.
There was a great turnout, with representatives from government, teachers, NGOs, the Zambian police and military, as well as international partners. We were very proud to have our own Fwilane Banda as one of the MC's for the day!
The Project Luangwa ladies leading the march for Gender Equality
Realising Potential
On top of the new initiatives we are undertaking in sponsorship, we are also working to improve our current programme, and to continue offering places to the most vulnerable children in our communities.
With the incredible generosity of global donors, we were able to take on 13 new students this year, ranging in age from 14 to 17. All of these children come from very disadvantaged backgrounds, and with your support we are able to offer them a chance at realising their potential.
In addition, we are working harder to improve the level of communication with our sponsors this year. 2021 saw some incredible challenges, not only due to covid, but due to emails bouncing and being delivered to junk mail. Please help us to insure our emails get through by marking communication from Project Luangwa as 'safe'
Finally we are working this year to raise funds for a new scholarship programme. Many students who attain good marks at school, are still unable to go to University as Project Luangwa or their sponsor cannot afford to support them. We know what a huge commitment University is, and as such we are trying to set up a Scholarship Fund, that will allow those students with the best results to be guaranteed a place in tertiary education. By clubbing together, individual donors can therefore help to support very deserving students on the next stage of their progression. Thank you so much to everyone who has already supported this initiative.
Some of our new students collecting their school supplies
Feeding Schools in Malama
One of the biggest motivations to keeping children in school is food. For the children in Malama who receive no outside support, many only receive one meal a day at home. As such children are either too hungry to walk the large distances to school each day, or their parents prefer to keep them at home to assist with farming for the family.
With the amazing support of Rotary Club Meerbusch, we are committed to feeding Malama school children for one whole year, providing every child with a real incentive to learn, and the energy to do so.
It's also been an incredible opportunity for our student volunteers to assist with the delivery of this programme and partake in social responsibility projects such as this.
We're truly indebted to Rotary Club Meerbusch and its members, for all of their help.
A Tribute to Sheila Ashton
It is with great sorrow that one of our long term sponsors, Sheila Ashton, tragically passed away in March. Sheila selflessly supported two students through secondary school, and we were all devastated by her unexpected passing.
Her husband Terry held a fundraiser for Project Luangwa in honour of Sheila, and they have raised enough to cover a further student through five years of school.
We're so grateful for everything that Sheila and Terry have done for the children of South Luangwa, and are pleased to celebrate all of the wonderful achievements of her life.
Thank you Sheila.
Working with Students from Eton College
As part of our ongoing commitment to improve sponsorship, we're currently working with students from Eton College in the UK to gather historical data for 250 Project Luangwa alumni.
From this data we will be able to build a comprehensive picture of what our ex-sponsored students are now doing, how many are in employment, and how life-changing their educational opportunities have been for them.
In addition, the Eton College students are also looking at the Project Luangwa cafe and exploring new initiatives to help improve what we can offer.
Our student volunteers help to gather data from surveys
Eco Stoves in Action!
We were thrilled to welcome investors from C-Quest Capital this month, who came to see our stove project in action.
C-Quest have worked tirelessly to bring clean cooking initiatives all across Southern Africa and the world, and we're very grateful for everything they have done to help us setup this initiative.
The village in Mnkhanya Chiefdom held a traditional dance for our visitors and they got to see first hand how the stoves are having a major impact in improving health, lessening drudgery and carbon emissions, and preventing deforestation.
We have now built 1,718 stoves in communities and planted 500 new trees, since our project began in January last year.
A Year in Focus
Despite the global challenges of the past two years, 2021 has truly been a year of incredible results for Project Luangwa. On top of school programmes, sponsorship and gender initiatives, we also carried out a vast amount of construction and infrastructure projects across 25 schools. Thousands of children, young adults, and disadvantaged households benefitted from our work last year, but we could not have done any of it without the unbelievable support of our donors, partners and member lodges. Thank you so much, for all you've done and continue to do.
The image below shows a snapshot of what we have achieved, but please click the link for a full look at our 2021 Annual Report.
Incredible Support
We continue to be humbled by the incredible support from all of our donors. Doubtless everyone shares the feeling of fatigue after over two years of living in the shadow of Covid-19, yet despite that the continued assistance for families and children who rely on lost tourism income, has been truly invaluable.
We're also incredibly grateful to the organisations that have continued to work with us during these challenging times, and a big thank you to Africa Hope Fund for their match funding of up to $10,000 for digital learning!
In addition, the commitment of our lodges to support local communities has continued to be outstanding. Without the critical relationship between tourism-community-conservation, then South Luangwa would fail to exist as we know it, and we are so grateful to all our members, Flatdogs Camp, Kafunta Safaris, Shenton Safaris, Green Safaris Shawa River Camp, Njobvu Safaris, and Chichele Safaris Puku Ridge, for all they do. Please follow the links below to learn more about these wonderful operators.
As always we can't thank all of our child sponsors enough, for allowing disadvantaged children the opportunity of an education. If you'd like to know more details about this, then please take a look at our website.
We're also incredibly thankful to the Patel Family for driving our newest initiative Digi-Truck, and to C-Quest Capital for allowing us to implement our stove project.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has chosen 'Project Luangwa' as their charity of choice through Amazon. As a reminder, for those of you who shop on Amazon in the UK, please remember to login through Amazon Smile, rather than the usual login page, and select Project Luangwa as your supported charity. That way every time you shop, a portion of the cost is donated for free.
If you would like to know more about our activities then please click here or look below for a link to our annual reports.
A special thank you to Chiawa Trust and the Lyons Trust, for their support of Edulution and Sponsorship and Livingstone Foundation and Partners for providing funding and sponsorship for a number of school projects, sponsorship and Edulution as well!
As always, we are also so grateful to everyone who has chosen to sponsor a student or donate to one of our programmes. You are the reason we are able to continue our work in South Luangwa and help to empower the people living here. The good you do cannot be overstated.
Thank you
If you would like to get involved, or continue to support Project Luangwa and all of our programs, please click one of the links below.
Visit our website for more info www.projectluangwa.org
Project Luangwa is proudly supported by local Member Lodges:
