Training at Sinandambwe

We were lucky to have the services of our partner teacher Macloud to demonstrate to his peers at Sinandambwe Primary School how to use and care for the computers.

Solar power for Sinandambwe

After a very bumpy off-road journey we reached Sinandambwe to find Muhunya Solar already busy at work running cables and fixing sockets.

We delivered Raspberry Pi 400 computers, monitors, a large TV and a router. Most useful of all is the Raspberry Pi 4 RACHEL server. This holds lessons, stories and videos to promote learning by teachers, pupils and the wider community.

Paypal Giving Fund

Help us continue to make an impact. Select us as your favourite charity and we could receive up to £20,000 in matched funding with PayPal Giving Fund through Give at Checkout via PayPal.

Visit https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/setfavorite-charity and search for Giakonda Solar Schools and select us as your favourite.

Video of some of our solar installations

Watch here

Sad news

So sorry to be mourning the loss of our founder, Howard Kirkman, after a long battle with cancer. He worked hard for Giakonda Solar Schools until the end and his inspiration will drive us to keep the vision going on.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Unexpected impacts

Sometimes our efforts at improving the educational chances of Zambian children have even more impact than first expected. The following are quotes from MUnyama School.
“Munyama primary school has for many years been operating without power to run  electrical equipments/gadgets or enough to have lights in the classrooms for the pupils. Until MARCH 2018, when GIAKONDA helped the school by providing a solar system that eradicated many challenges the school used face when it used to operate completely without power. Currently the pupils are able to study in the night without any problems, the teachers are equally able do their work in the night due the availability of power and good cool weather.
In additional, the computer studies department received a heavy boost from GIAKONDA through the donation of Lifebook laptop computers which improved the computer to pupil ratio. This gesture eased the learning and teaching of computer studies especially the practical part. Teachers are equally able to type their work freely without congesting the computer which were not in the school at the time.
Further the RACHEL has also been a very good resource for both the teachers and the pupils as they are able to research additional material in line with their work.
Additionally, it has also improved the school community partnership and rapport. Many parents visit the school to acquit themselves with internet services.

The one other positive story is that, two male parents after taking interest in computer studies, did register for the grade nine examinations and progressed to grade ten. We take these as the GIAKONDA first fruits.

Lastly but not the least, the recent training on learning to learn program has played a fundamental role in the improvement of girl child enrolment and also making the lesson interesting to the pupils and the teachers themselves as they enjoyed learning while playing.

The training has equipped teachers with learner friendly methodologies

COSTAZ Conference

Yesterday the Computer Science Teachers Association Zambia (COSTAZ) held a conference at ST Vincent de Paul School in Monze. One of the items on the agenda was the setting up of Code Clubs in Schools.

Over the last couple of years, Howard has been training a small group of teachers to run code clubs to teach programming and physical computing. Macloud from Kabuyu andIT technician Bridget, were invited to address the delegates about this. There was a great deal of interest and we hope that more code clubs will be rolled out soon. Thanks to Francis from St Vincent’s for arranging this.