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.