We are proud to have received the following notification from NAQEZ. This stands for National Action for Quality Education in Zambia.
From our Executive Director Mr Aron Chansa, both of you from today hence, become HONORARY Members of NAQEZ (National Action for Quality Education in Zambia) for being instrumental in Uplifting the standards of ICT in Siavonga rural schools, through your able organization GIAKONDA.
It’s good to be appreciated.
Our Zambian colleague, Joel, held a training session for us in Lusaka. He demonstrated the use of a Raspberry Pi as a fully functioning PC which can be mounted neatly on the back of its monitor .Thanks to VOTS school for letting us use their building for training. A total of fourteen teachers
attended and all were impressed with the power and versatility of this tiny computer.They also used the Raspberry Pi to connect to a server delivering RACHEL learning resources.
We are setting up a hub of Raspberry Pi computers at Bbakasa School thanks to Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Scheme.
Category : News
This week we have been busy with events organised by Hub Cymru Africa.
On Wednesday we attended a meeting in Swansea based around the International Charter for Health Partnerships. We shared our experiences of building strong local partnerships and using them to help us address local educational needs in Siavonga Zambia.
Yesterday it was a Meet The Funders event. Grants and donations are what allow us to function. So it is vital to understand how best to make an application. There were opportunities to speak to individual funding organisations and chances to network.
So today I’m all fired up to start bid-writing!
Category : News
This month we have been busy meeting several other Wales based charities working in Zambia. We offer advice on setting up solar panels and Raspberry Pi servers with the learning resources of RACHEL and Kolibri.
Giakonda Solar Schools helps Friends of Monze by installing solar power in the schools they build and supplying refurbished laptops and the learning resources. We met with them recently to discuss their future needs.
Howard has refurbished some laptops and added Kolibri resources to them for Elizabeth Rhodes who works with orphans and others in Zambia.
We are looking forward to a second meeting with Hands Around the World to discuss how they might proceed with their two projects in Zambia. They are particularly interested in the health resources on the Hesperian Health Guides which is part of RACHEL.
At the end of the month, we are sharing details of our project at an event organised by Hub Cymru Africa.
Thanks to Daniel Mangwende of Dibbwi Primary School for carrying out RACHEL training for us at Siavonga Teachers’ Resource Centre on Monday 9th December. He showed a group of seventeen teachers how to access the RACHEL learning resources on a Raspberry Pi server using laptops or smartphones. He explained how his teachers make use of it for lesson preparation and teaching, and how to shut down the system safely.
Most of the schools present have no mains electricity so they were 
supplied with powerbanks to power their Raspberry Pis.
The Raspberry Pi server provides a huge off-line library of videos, articles and lesson plans tailored for rural communities. It can be a real game changer in schools which have few teaching resources.
Thanks to a grant of £2500 from the Carmela and Ronnie Pignatelli Foundation, Giakonda Solar Schools was able to provide the necessary equipment and organise a day’s training. Mr Mangwende is already planning follow-up sessions so the teachers can share experiences and success.
Thanks to the generosity of a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, we have this week despatched another fifty laptops to Zambia.
We have also supplied a new solar controller for one of our schools and the Raspberry Pi Weather Station for use by the Geography Department at Siavonga High School.
Finally, we have been purchasing equipment with funding from the Carmela and Ronnie Pignatelli Foundation. This consists of the latest Raspberry Pi 4 computers in metal cases, with RACHEL learning resouces loaded on 128GB microsd cards.
With their generous grant we will give these excellent learning resources to 17 schools. We will hold a training day in Siavonga Teachers Resource Centre where the teachers can learn how to make the most of RACHEL in their lesson preparation and teaching.
Schools that have benefitted from this already have described it as ” lifechanging”; “makes my job so much easier”; “helps address the Zambian curricuklum”.
Category : News
We’re a few week’s away from #GivingTuesday. We hope to use 3rd December as an opportunity to raise our profile and raise some extra cash to support schools in rural Zambia.
Since January 2015, we have been supplying solar power and learning resources to the Siavonga District of Zambia. Most of the funding to set up each new school comes from grants. For about £3000, we can install solar panels to power LED lighting, laptops, a projector or TV for class lessons and the Raspberry Pi with all the off-line learning resources of RACHEL. This consists of a huge library of articles, videos and lesson plans about all subjects of the curriculum, plus advice on health, farming etc tailored for rural communities. It creates its own wifi hotspot. Users can connect via smartphone, tablet or laptop.
We think the Pi server is so useful that we should donate it to every school, clinic, library or community organisation in the District. That’s where you can help.
The new improved Raspberry Pi 4 costs from £35 to £54 depending on memory size. A power supply for it is £8.
The microsd card on which we preload all the learning resources costs £24.
A case that can be screwed securely to the wall costs £15.
Total= about £100 but the value to the recipient is priceless.
Donate here
Category : News
Milz the Teacher, trustee of Giakonda Solar Schools Zambia, headlined at The Hyst in Swansea during the recent visit of Siavonga teachers.
It was a great evening of Reggae music.
Category : News
A bit of a gap in news doesn’t mean we’ve been idle. Following our visit in June, we had reports to write and applications for funding for the next venture. This week we are pleased to see a group of teachers from Siavonga visiting Swansea under the British Council Connecting Classrooms Scheme.
Howard has been refurbishing and installing software on laptops for them to take back. We’re also sending a Raspberry Pi Weather station which will be used by the Geography Department at Siavonga High School to add to a worldwide schools data base.
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.