NAQEZ Southern Province conference

Giakonda Solar Schools were delighted to be invited to address the conference of National Action for Quality Education Zambia (NAQEZ) in Choma, Southern Province.  They were interested to hear about how we have worked with Zambian schools to improve access to educational resources and computers.

Teachers Daniel Mangwende and Francis Kanene demonstrated some of the ways they use Raspberry Pi in their schools : for accessing the learning resources of RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hub for Education and Learning); as a powerful PC using one tenth the power of a standard desktop; and as a great way of introducing pupils to the useful skills of coding.

Following my short presntation we were invited to join the Southern Province Educational Officer, Dr Allan Kaoma, to discuss further how we can extend the range of schools we support throughout Southern Province.

Zambian Education magazine

We are proud to have an article included in the first edition of the Zambian Education Magazine, published by NAQEZ (National Action for Quality Education in Zambia). Howard talks about the issues of choosing appropriate IT equipment for use in a rural African setting.

Click the link to read

ZAMBIAN EDUCATION MAG 1st Ed

Impact of solar power

Daniel Mangwende of Dibbwi School today sent a letter describing the impact that solar power has made on his school. We are glad to receive his endorsement and thank him for his kind words.

If anyone doubts how effective £5000 can be to rural Zambia, read below.

Letter of support

Meeting partners

On our travels homeward we met with some of our partners. Aaron Chanza is CEO of NAQEZ, an organisation which promotes quality education in Zambia and advises and makes recommendations to the Ministry of General Education.

We also met our partners from The Future is Female Zambia  who are working with us on the Learning to Learn project, funded thanks to a grant from the Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Grant Scheme.

Anti money-laundering awareness

We attended an interesting Zoom meeting early this morning for NGOs registered with the Zambian Government. A representative of the Financial Intelligence Centre gave a presentation on Money Laundering and Funding Terrorism awareness to 93 people.

This was followed by a Q&A session. The new Zambian government is preparing a Code of Conduct to guide all NGOs and not-for-profit organisations to comply with best practice as outlined by the Financial Action Task Force.