Phillip Sikilwa
Category : News
So sorry to hear of the death of Phillip who gave us so much help and guidance in setting up bee hives in schools and a Womans Group in Siavonga.
He will be sadly missed.
Giakonda Solar Schools
Powering Potential for Zambian Schools
Category Archives: News
- 18th June 2021
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- 15th June 2021
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Small Charities Week
Category : News
It’s Small Charities Week and an opportunity to reach out to the world and emphasise how much good small charities like Giakonda Solar Schools can do.
We don’t have a huge budget but having no overheads means every penny we can raise goes to promote education in Zambia. Our projects may not be earth-shattering but I believe they are valuable if they make a big difference to the lives of even just a few children through access to lighting and learning resources.
- 8th June 2021
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Enabling COVID-safe schools
A grant from Welsh Governments Wales and Africa Scheme has helped us to provide COVID-safe environments in 14 solar powered rural schools in Siavonga District, Zambia.
We have previously distributed COVID guidance charts and non-contact digital thermometers. With the grant, we supplied additional handwashing stations, hygiene and PPE equipment to aid 14 rural schools to run a COVID- safe school for their staff and pupils. Pupils generally bring their own masks but we provided a bank of spare washable ones for the school to distribute where needed. The District Education Board team helped us in the procurement and distribution of this equipment.
Secondly, we provided mobile broadband to support the remote working of our partnership with teachers in Siavonga schools and to enable an increased amount of online teacher training We installed internet communications with broadband routers in 14 solar-powered schools. Our local technician sourced and installed the necessary cables to connect these routers to the solar-powered system and to the existing Raspberry Pi resource network.
This technology will greatly help our planning, monitoring and evaluation of our project through more regular contact with each school. It will also facilitate our training sessions in Digital Literacy, ICT and developing skills using the off-line resources we have already provided. We are regularly delivering weekly Zoom courses with an attendance of at least ten teachers at each one.
- 19th March 2021
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Endorsement from NAQEZ
Pleased to have received this letter today regarding resources we have supplied to over 8o schools in Zambia.
- 16th March 2021
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Adapting solar schools for COVID times
We are pleased to confirm that we have received a grant of £5184 from the Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Grant Scheme to help make some Zambian schools safer for their staff and pupils.
With it we’ll buy handwashing stations, masks, soap and cleaning materials to make a safer environment.
We’ll also buy mobile routers so that schools can access remote resources and training.
- 17th February 2021
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COVID safe resources for schools
Great news today with the award of a grant from the Wales and Africa Grant Program. With it we will promote a safe return to school for Zambian teachers and pupils. We will supply hygiene equipment in the form of masks, sanitisers and soap as well as providing hand washing stations.
The fourteen rural schools which will benefit run only on solar power. We have provided them with a great off-line resource in the form of RACHEL on a Raspberry Pi server. This grant will enable us to provide mobile routers to each school so that they can enjoy internet access. It will make it easier for teachers to access our Zoom training courses and to find and share more educational resources with their pupils.
Thousands of children will benefit from learning in a safer environment and having access to support online.
- 14th December 2020
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- 9th December 2020
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Looking Forward to 2021
We’re pleased with the training that Howard delivered this autumn. We raised funds to reward 8 teachers with a Raspberry Pi computer to practise what they learned. The equipment arrived safely and is being put to good use.
Several teachers have already signed up for Spring 2021 when the focus will be on LibreOffice Calc and Writer.
- 9th November 2020
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Raspberry Pi PCs en route to Zambia
Thanks to all those who contributed to our recent gofundme campaign. Today we sent off equipment for 8 Zambian teachers who had worked particularly hard at the Zoom training sessions Howard has been delivering this term.
With the Raspberry PIs and cables we’ve sent (and their own keyboard, mouse and screen) they will be able to practise the programming skills they’ve been learning; and pass them on to their pupils.
With some additional money, we sent SSD hard drives with Raspbian operating system so that they can each refurbish one of the laptops we shipped out a few months ago.
A big thank you to all our supporters.
- 29th October 2020
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ProjectLibre
Category : News
In 2013 Howard wrote a tutorial on using ProjectLibre for ECDL L2 Project exam. Now he has been approached by the LibreOffice guys to help with producing the documentation for the online version of ProjectLibre.
It’s great project management software that doesn’t cost anything!
Coincidentally this week we’ve been asked to share a pdf version of the tutorial with Salem State University.