Smaller Classes + higher marks in exams + modern facilities – all thanks to you!
We provide each child with a free cooked meal at lunchtime every day. We grow all the fruit & veg on site, and cook nshima (maize meal) over charcoal in the open air.
Thanks to local and international supporters, we now have two small buses which collect and deliver children four times a day along the busy Mumbwa Road.
Our school is next to Zambia’s main road to the west, and close to several large communities of mud houses. Our simple buildings sit comfortably within our local community, and are relevant to the people we serve.
Through generous overseas friends and supporters, we now have four big blocks which each contain two large classrooms. In the last few years, we’ve also built a science laboratory, dug a borehole, converted the head teacher’s house into an Early Years’ Unit, and erected a sustainable toilet & shower block which is large enough to serve the whole school.
Since 2020, we’ve also managed to buy over 3,400 of the most up-to-date textbooks, two afro-centric reading schemes to help our children learn to read fluently, and over 1,000 afro-centric reading and reference books.
We’re aiming for self-sufficiency in food by developing a large market garden & livestock compound. As funds permit, we’re planting hundreds of fruit trees to provide future generations of learners with food and shade.
Like everyone else in our local community, we struggle for power. Last year, we installed solar power for our water pump, and, this February, we provided our school office with solar power. Wifi is many years away!
We have dedicated classes for every grade from pre-school through to Grade 12. We aim for up to 45 children in each class: this might seem a lot overseas, but our classes are much smaller than most Zambian schools.
Because so many children start schooling late, or miss a few years before returning, there is an age range of six years in all our classes. This wide range requires specialist teaching skills, so all our teachers are well-trained and highly qualified, and we provide them with ongoing professional development. As a result, most teachers at other schools in the area try to send their own children to Mukwashi.
Our Early Years’ Unit is in its own fenced site – with a classroom, outdoor learning area, nap room, large secure garden and play areas.
We provide two full-time Catch Up Classes, with specialist literacy and numeracy teachers, for children who start schooling late, and a full-time Extra Class which provides additional learning in English, Maths & Science to those seeking to be stretched.
We follow the Zambian curriculum closely in Primary School, but conduct all our lessons exclusively in English. In Lower Secondary, we offer all compulsory subjects plus computer studies (we use the computer room at another school). In Upper Secondary, our learners specialise in Agricultural Science and business subjects.
English
Mathematics
Integrated Science
Agricultural Science
Computer Studies
Religious Education
Social Studies
Commerce Accounts
Physical Education
Business Studies
Civic Education
Our staff and their responsibilities
Head Teacher
Deputy Head Teacher
Deputy Head Teacher
Mathematics, Integrated Science
Agricultural Science, Integrated Science
English, Social Studies, Civic Education
English, Social Studies
Mathematics, Religious Education
Physical Education, Mathematics
Computer Studies, Accounts, Commerce, Business Studies
English; Grade 3 class teacher
Home Economics, Expressive Arts & Maths; Extra Class teacher
Science, Technology & Special Papers; Grade 1 class teacher
Grade 2 & Grade 4 class teacher
Catch Up Class teacher
Social Studies, Catch Up Class
Early Years’ & Reception Teacher
Early Years’ & Reception Teaching Assistant
Administration Officer
Transport & Maintenance Officers
Housekeeping Officer
Horticultural Officer
Catering Officers
In Zambia, in addition to core subjects like English, Maths, Social Studies and Integrated Science, every school must provide its learners with practical knowledge, skills and experience in one particular area — as their ‘pathway’ to subsequent training or employment.
Because we serve a mainly farming community, we decided Agricultural Science was the best pathway for our upper secondary learners.
We combine this with Business Studies, Accounts and Commerce to help them learn about agriculture as a genuine business and an important career.
This combination of Agriculture and Business subjects gives our learners the knowledge, skills and values every child in our rural locality needs to serve our community and help it prosper.
As part of the pathway, we provide experimental business and agriculture ‘labs’. All secondary learners work together to develop and operate a community shop as their own business, and they all share a plot of land with a friend where they conduct their own agricultural experiments.
They also learn by caring for the school’s banana plantation and orchard; and each grade cares for different animals in the livestock enclosure.
All the school’s ‘improvements’ (toilets, borehole, buses, kitchen, books, trees, livestock, etc) have come from the hard work of the Mukwashi school staff and the generosity of local and international supporters.
Since 2020, over 200 supporters, in twenty different countries, have kindly given the school over £70,000 through this web-site.
Several small companies in the UK and South Africa have also donated goods and professional services.
And dozens of Zambian businesses have contributed materials at either no cost or with a big discount.
We say a huge ‘THANK YOU’ to them all. Every gift has been a life-changing investment in young Zambian lives.
The school’s founders wanted to give the children in Chilanga district a future shaped by high-quality education, and for them to become catalysts for change in their own community.
We are now sufficiently ‘down the line’ to be able to see this happening.
Here are some of the ‘ex learners’ who have studied at Mukwashi: they represent the young people in whom our supporters are investing.
None of them began with any of the stuff people in high income countries think matters, but they all have tons of the stuff which really matters:
From left to right:
Twaambo graduated from teaching college, and works as an intern teaching English at a government secondary school. Nicholas is pursuing his passion for woodwork, and works with his brother’s company making and selling furniture. Nandipha works as a singer / songwriter, and is now a mother. Kenneth graduated as an agricultural engineer, and works for our landlord, Seedco. Diana is teaching English for a local US evangelical mission. Lazarous graduated with a business degree, and works for a Zambian company as their Stores’ Controller. Mweetwa works as a consultant water engineer. And Kadija works with her husband running their family farm, and now has two children.
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