Context

Kapiri Mposhi is a small provincial town in Zambia, but a major transport junction. On the edge of that town there lies the residential area of Matilyo with its Community School. In 2007 the situation for Matilyo Community School was quite difficult. There were 1358 pupils in the school, but the facilities were extremely limited. Pupils studied sitting on the floor: only some classes had a simple desk for teachers. There was virtually no educational aids or textbooks used in classes: only the blackboard was available. During the first SGG visit there was no water in the school. The desire for education was there but the facilities few.

Matilyo School in October 2007 – the smiles are there but facilities few. Average class size at this time was more than 84 pupils.

Furthermore, Matilyo had a characteristic set of social problems which are typical of so many townships in Southern Africa. At the core of these difficulties is poverty associated with high rates of unemployment. Such problems are aggravated by high rates of HIV infection and a high proportion of orphans and/or vulnerable children (OVCs). Widespread excess alcohol consumption is a further hindrance to progress. Within this context there is a common desire to provide education for the youngsters of Matilyo, but there are very few resources to enable the establishment of good schooling there.

Matilyo Community School was started in 2001 with “lessons under the tree”. Afterwards the school grew rapidly, so that in 2007 it had 1358 pupils, but only six classrooms. In order to accommodate such demand for education the school organised ‘split sessions’ with pupils attending either morning or afternoon sessions. There was also an old lorry container in the schoolyard which served as a spare ‘overflow’ classroom. With such measures it was possible to reduce class sizes to about 75 children per class. It was not a situation conducive to good education. Furthermore at the time of the SGG visit in 2007 to Matilyo, the school borehole pump was broken. This meant that there was no water on the compound, so most of the school’s flush toilets were out of action.

October 2007 – if there is high attendance there is a shortage of classrooms. In such circumstances this old lorry container is used as a makeshift classroom. There were 45 pupils crammed in this container at the time of SGG’s visit.

Matilyo Community School does have one advantage: it has space. The school has been allocated a large area of 300m by 270m, which includes a traditional house & plot as well as a football pitch. There is space for considerable tree-planting and gardening in what in October 2007 was a dry, dusty and largely treeless compound. It is SGG’s proposal to gradually increase the greenery within this compound over the next 5 years.

Aims

The costs of improving the basic facilities of Matilyo Community School are well above anything that SGG could pay. On the other hand SGG does intend to bring some improvements to the location. Thus, initial SGG support for Matilyo will focus on improvements to the school grounds, including tree-planting and support for a women’s group who cultivate within those grounds as an alternative to paying school fees. SGG will also look for sponsors who may assist in the development of the school.

Progress

By late 2009 there were considerable improvements on the conditions found two years previously. The most notable improvements concerned, however, the basic facilities of the school rather than the school grounds which SGG were trying to improve. There was a considerable increase in the number of trees within the grounds, but problems of theft and dry season wildfires meant that the survival rate was a disappointing 35% of those planted in 2007. It was decided therefore in 2009 to employ a groundsman who can water and weed trees in the critical first year after transplanting. It was also agreed to try and reduce theft of newly transplanted seedlings by including the local community in any future tree-planting scheme.

Matilyo School in December 2009 – there are many improvements since 2007. There are classroom desks, the walls are plastered, the windows have frames & glass. Yet there are many further basic improvements needed.

The beginnings of a school orchard.