Category Archives: News

June Visit

Category : News

Can’t believe we’ve been home for four weeks already! It was a very successful visit on all fronts and we’ve been busy organising information and writing reports ever since.

Feedback from schools in Zambia has been consistently positive, however after 4 years of work there, it was  time to review our activities and gain a fuller understanding of the impact of them. We set out to do this monitoring exercise with the support of The Waterloo Foundation.

We visited all 14 solar schools which have received solar panels thanks to one of the following donors:
University of Wales Trinity St Davids
S&C Electric
Hub Cymru Africa
Solar Plants
The Waterloo Foundation
Wales For Africa

Read our report here.

Also on this trip, we installed solar panels at Malimba School on behalf of Friends of Monze and held training sessions in Monze and Chilanga Districts.

Manchamvwa Inland School

Category : News , solarpower

Manchamvwa InlandManchamvwa Inland

This school is very remote and, as such, the teachers have particular challenges. There are 4 teachers who use smartphones as well as 5 school laptops. There are 216 pupils.
We installed solar power for them in February 2019 thanks to a grant from Welsh Government Wales for Africa Grants Scheme.

panels at manchamvwa Inlandsolar control at Manchamvwa ilandManchamvwa Inland batteriesManchamvwa Inland battery fuel gauge

It is functioning well and enabling them to charge the laptops, phones and a projector. They can keep LED lighting on at night for security.  After school hours, older pupils who live in the community but attend other schools come in to Manchamvwa Inland to study and complete homework thanks to the light and RACHEL learning resources.

The local residents are enjoying African Cup of Nations on TV and the local barber even comes in to cut hair, running his clippers from the solar power!

Kawila School

Category : News , solarpower

Kawila School was comparatively easy to reach i.e. we didn’t get stuck! The school was given solar power in September 2017 thanks to a grant from The Waterloo Foundation.

Kawila school signkawila school

Kawila school has 5 teachers including the Head Teacher, two of whom are studying for a degree in Computers. There is one unqualified teacher. 325 pupils come to school in three sessions. When not in lessons they enjoy the seesaw and a game that looked to me just like Duck Duck Goose (although they called it MerryGoRound.)

seesawMerry Go Round

The solar panels enable the school to charge laptops and phones. They use the lights occasionally when there are events in the evening.

Kawila classroomsolar at Kawila

They make use of the projector as a teaching aid and reported that it was bright enough for use in the classroom.

The most used units on RACHEL were African StoryBooks and Wikipedia to prepare and deliver lessons.

approach to kawilakawila

Sianyoolo School

Category : News

Sianyoolo is the local zone school. It runs from Grades 1 to 9 with a total of 600 pupils. The school received solar power in Feb 2017 thanks to a donation of panels by Solar Plants of Baglan Bay and other equipment  funded by Hub Cymru Africa.

Sianyoolo Schoolsianyoolo schoolsianyoolo school signsianyoolo solar kit

We saw Grade 9 pupils working on laptops preparing for practical ICT exams. This possible because they can charge them from the solar power.

working on laptopspupils with laptops

 

Visit to Chaanga area

Category : News , zambia

Several of the schools where we have installed solar panels over the last few years are situated in the Chaanga area of Siavonga. As this quite a distance from the town, we decided to stay in a lodging house in Chaanga itself. The surrounding scenery was stunning.

ChaangaChaangaChaangatoilet

It was an eye-opening experience. The room was clean and bed very comfortable but that was pretty much it in the way of amenities. The lady of the house made fritters from flour, salt, sugar and water to sell in the local market at an equivalent of 5p each.

cooking frittersfritters

Her children amused themselves by making bubbles by putting a hollow lollypop stick in the embers of a fire and blowing. Other children were working carrying water on their heads.

bubbleschildren carrying water

There was a local hospital with a maternity unit.

hospitalmaternity unit

Namumu School

Category : News

outside Namumu School

On 12th June we visited Namumu School. Children at Namumu School, like most of the rural schools in Siavonga District, receives food from the Zambian Government in the form of maize. The schools pay someone in the local community to boil it and that provides lunch each day. There is a shelter behind the school where children can eat. There is still a high degree of malnutrition and stunted growth in the area.

feeding areamaize

On 12th June we visited Namumu School. This school has now been connected to grid power. The solar equipment was in place but had been sidelined and the cables disconnected. Due to the fact that the cost of electricity is a drain on school resources, we intend to install a grid tie inverter and reinstate the solar set-up to feed into their grid.

 

solar controllersHT Namumu

head teachers room with PCsladies filling in questionnaire

We were pleased to see that the Raspberry Pi was turned on and was being used to access African Story Books and Wikipedia for Schools in particular. They had two PCs from the consignments of donated machines we sent out but were using  a laptop and teachers’ smartphones  to access the learning resources. Pupils occasionally used RACHEL independently. With a router, Namumu School will be able to network the PCs and use them to access RACHEL too.

Staff filled in our questionnaire for the impact assessment we are compiling thanks to a grant from The Waterloo Foundation

Bbakasa School

Category : News , zambia

Bbakasa is a remote rural school covering a large area stretching down to the Lower Zambezi. As such, it has many challenges. All the equipment was in place and since our last visit the school had received funding to add to the solar array.  Unfortunately it had suffered a lightning strike and the solar controller/inverter had been damaged.  We can not over-emphasise the need for earthing rods and lightning conductors  in the construction of schools where thunderstorms are frequent.

Bbakasa schoolbbakasaBbakasa HTsolar panels

Everything else looked OK and we hope to rectify the problems. The Head Teacher is well organised and his staff were familiar with RACHEL and had used the resources in their planning and teaching. We gave them an updated Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and an additional laptop. We were keen to get feedback on the impact of our project and teachers filled in our questionnaire. This part of our visit is funded by The Waterloo Foundation.

teachers at Bbakasademonstrating laptop

Munyama School

Category : News , solarpower

Our second visit on 13th June was to Munyama School. We are carrying out an exercise to monitor our impact thanks to funding from The Waterloo Foundation. This is the Zone school for the area and takes pupils to Grade 9.

Like Manchamvwa Lakeshore it is difficult to access and best reached by boat. A grant from Hub Cymru Africa enabled us to supply solar panels to both schools in Spring 2018.

Munyamasolar setup at Munyama

Everything was tidy and in good condition. We were very impressed with the Grade 9 pupils working on laptops donated by us and borrowed from Teachers. They were busy creating charts from spreadsheets and inserting them into presentation software.

IT classIT pupil

munyama schoolportable science lab

Like other schools which teach older pupils, Munyama School has been given a very basic portable “science lab” to use in Grades 8 and 9.

We are pleased to report that since our last visit the school now has two large water storage tanks to store water pumped up from Lake Kariba.

If you would like to help us continue to support Munyama and other schools, please consider donating here

 

Kabbila School

Category : News , solarpower

Today our monitoring visits took us to Kabbila and Namumu Schools. The Waterloo Foundation are funding this task.

Kabbila

Kabbila is a remote school which has been beautifully decorated by Hafod Primary School in Swansea.

decorated classroom at Kabbila decorated classsroom at kabbila

You can see pylons from the school grounds but no power for them.
panels on roof at kabbilaPylons in background

It was the first school in which we installed solar panels, courtesy of funds from University of Wales Trinity St Davids. They had looked after their equipment despite several changes of Head teacher.

solar set up at Kabbila Schoolsolar controller

There are many challenges for schools such as this but the community rallies around. The Head of the PTA was mending the milling machine while we were there!

milling machinegoats

 

 

Katalumba and Game School visits

Category : News , solarpower

Today we began our site visits to schools where we previously installed solar panels. This monitoring exercise is thanks to funding from The Waterloo Foundation.

Katalumba is on a hill overlooking Lake Kariba. The school has many challenges but as well as having large classes of pupils up to Grade 7, tries to cater for 8 children with a range of special needs. In the evening adults from the community come in for literacy lessons. Raspberry Pi with RACHEL can help with resources. We left them an updated version of Pi and a laptop to use to access the resources.

Head teacher KatalumbaLooking at RACHEL resourcesPupils in Katalumbaspecial needs classroom!

Game School also overlooks Lake Kariba. We installed solar panels in both these schools thanks to donation of the panels by Solar Plants in Baglan Bay and funding from Hub Cymru Africa. The panels are still functioning well and they are using the RACHEL resources. We left an updated version of the learning resources and also a laptop. Their classes are very large particularly in Grades 1-4, typically 65-70.

Looking at RACHEL resources via laptopswapping out Pichildren outside school

They have a football pitch and parents are cooperating to make a garden.

football pitchgarden

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