This Monday, our single teachers didn’t need to walk three kilometres along a farm track to school.
After thirteen weeks’ work, last Saturday was the fixed deadline, as that was when the rent contract for the ‘shacks’ we’ve been renting at a local farm expired.
We still have some work to do internally (and about two weeks externally) but our single staff moved in at the weekend and are thrilled with their new homes – even though they will have builders around for a few more weeks.
Meanwhile, we continue to work on the next two family homes nearby, and their walls are rising steadily.
We hope to complete these two homes in time for the staff to move in before Christmas.
It’s our ‘between-term’ break this month, and we’re having a blitz on important maintenance work. We’re busy replacing all the old louvre windows in the Upper Secondary block, Science Lab & Staff toilets with more appropriate bespoke windows. Finally, we’ll be able to keep the rain out of these classrooms and stop birds roosting in the building every evening.
This break, we’re also ‘transforming’ the school office with two coats of white paint and all the left-over floor tiles from the toilet block – parents and learners won’t recognise it next term.
And we’re also trying to make the school kitchen a more ‘easy-to-clean’ and professional space for our catering team by tiling the walls and using the ‘off-cuts’ from the first stage of the housing project to tile the floor. It looks amazing!
Then, suddenly, our frenetic activity was interrupted by some wonderful ‘out-of-the-blue’ news from the Zambian Revenue Authority. After four years of repeated applications, rejections, conferences, frustrations, re-applications, more rejections, an inspection, more discussions followed by long silences, we received an email stating that the Finance Minister had formally recognised the school as a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO). Cue wild celebrations in Zambia, South Africa, Angola, Canada, Austria and the UK!
Finally, this is the formal ‘official’ acknowledgement by the Zambian government that Mukwashi is genuinely ‘different’ and is not like other ‘private’ schools. For us, PBO status is a massive step forward to local sustainability and to local recognition that Mukwashi is a truly ‘Zambian’ school.
PBO status is important in the Zambian educational community because it is a very public ‘seal of approval’ – which also considerably strengthens our applications to funders. Practically, it also means the government rewards us for our contribution to the Zambian ‘public benefit’ by exempting us from VAT on construction materials and imported goods. So it is very good and encouraging news!
We’ve completed the inside painting of the two Stage One blocks, and are trying to ensure they do not feel ‘institutional’. Each studio is different, and the corridors are homely and attractive.
Here is one of the shared kitchens ready for the fittings to be installed… It’s easiest to fit the doors as the very last job – saves them from being marked…
Meanwhile, the walls have started to rise on the two Stage Two houses…
We’ve only two weeks left until our teachers have to vacate their rented shacks, so there will be frenetic activity to try to complete our two Stage One blocks by then. We can then work at a slightly more leisurely pace on the Stage Two houses.
We’ve completed the groundworks on ‘Stage Two’ – two three-bedroomed family homes to house the Mukwashi headteachers and deputy heads for the next fifty years…
Our team dug and levelled the footings, filled them with concrete, laid the base-frame, compressed the base, laid the damp-proof membrane, positioned the steel strengthening, assembled a temporary wooden frame, and then poured the concrete. The foundations are done.
Meanwhile…
We are into the final three weeks of ‘Stage One’ – two good homes where up to nine of Mukwashi’s teachers can live comfortably for the next 50… One contains 5 studios for single teachers; the other provides flexible homes for either four single teachers or two married teachers.
During the week, we completed the ceilings and tiled floors in one house and started painting the outside. We’re painting the outside walls bright white to help cool the rooms.
We raced ahead this week. The windows have been installed. The ceilings are in position, with large loft hatches for easy maintenance. And the rendering has begun on the external walls.
More importantly, we started work on the second project – building two family homes for the head teacher and deputy head teacher. For the next month, we’ll be working on both projects at the same time.
PUE finished the two rooves this week. They also completed the internal plastering – which now needs to dry completely for about ten days before tiling and painting.
They also completed the electrical and plumbing ‘first fixes’ and linked the buildings into the site water & sewerage infrastructure we developed three years ago in our big ‘toilet & water’ project.
At the same time, carpenters created the ceiling framework. Our teachers are looking forward to the privacy ceilings will give them more than any other feature of our ‘improved living homes’.
To fund an ‘improved living’ new home for a teacher at Mukwashi Trust School in Zambia
£10 will fund a window, £40 a solar panel & £90 half the roof sheets. £245 will buy the solar geyser, & £480 will tile & equip the bathroom.
The project
Until now, Mukwashi’s teachers have had to rent primitive shacks on local farms. This year, however, Mukwashi is seeking to build fifteen ‘improved living’ homes (with ceilings, plastered walls, tiled floors, a shower, gas hob, solar led lighting and solar heated water) on its school site – one for every teacher.
These new homes are costing an average of £5,800 each – and we want to raise the funds to pay for one of them. We hope this will forge a permanent link between Birmingham’s young people and Mukwashi which will enrich both communities for decades to come.
Our involvement
As a family, we learnt about Mukwashi Trust School through reading about its impact in southern Africa, watching its performances and – this year – Hosanna taking part in its poetry exchange with her school.
So it seemed a great idea for us as a family to organise a concert for Mukwashi using our links with some of Birmingham’s youth theatre, music & dance groups and the secondary school Lex & Sophie attend.
Please come to the showcase – and please donate generously. It’s rare that £5,000 can build a teacher a good quality new home.
This event is organised by Rob, Hosanna, Lex, Sophie & Beth Stokes.
We woke to bad news on the Friday before the mid-term break.
Thieves had broken into the school office during the night (they had forced two security doors) and then had forced open the school’s safe and had stolen the small safe inside containing all the fees and fares we had received during the week.
In total, the thieves stole ZMW 32,000 (that’s £1,000) – which is the equivalent of one teacher’s annual salary.
This was a deeply shocking and traumatising experience for all our staff. The funds are unrecoverable, but we also have the costs of repairing the two security doors and the door of our large safe.
We are also thoroughly revising all our cash handling procedures.
We’ve also had to buy the new safe for our cash in the photo, and are investigating much stronger security doors. It’s been a difficult (and expensive) few days…
