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Outreach at ZIGS
Educating our students and empowering local people
ZIGS will not be cocooned from the wider community. ZIGS will be a focal point for the empowerment of local people.
ZIGS will provide considerable employment opportunities for local people and as the school develops will serve as a focal point for lifelong learning within it’s vicinity through outreach programmes and an extended school facility. ZIGS will work within the community to develop:
- agricultural projects working alongside local farmers,
- improve literacy and numeracy levels of the adult population,
- focus on the promotion of skills related to the tourism industry,
- develop an awareness of the humankinds duty to be responsible for our planet through the promoion of environmental and conservation issues,
- promote the Arts and Culture,
- develop an academy of sporting excellence.
ZIGS ultimately will become a beacon school that will reach out beyond it’s perimeters to promote solidarity and sustainable development within the wider community.
Furthermore, ZIGS will operate a summer school during closure in both December and August. Students for the summer school are to be drawn from across Africa and from Europe and North America. The summer school programme will be based upon issues relating to sustainable development, the arts, sports, the environment, agriculture, tourism and issues relating to HIV & Aids. Accreditation will be sought for the summer school programme.
ZIGS will also operate as a beacon school within the Livingstone/Kazungula district offering a range of outreach projects to partner schools. ZIGS will work with partners to promote the Continued Professional Development of teachers in partner schools, collaborative In Service Training provided by our most experienced and successful teachers and will provide opportunities for pupils across the district to learn within our campus.
Outreach projects focused on orphans and vulnerable children
In Zambia, like many other African countries, there is a long established tradition of the extended family looking after children who have been orphaned. In the vast majority of cases children who have lost both parents are then raised by their uncles and aunts or their grandparents. It is often said that there is no such thing as an orphan in Africa! To a large extent this old adage still rings true today despite the scourge of HIV and Aids, poverty and disease. Despite this many well meaning charities and NGO’s are setting up a plethora of orphanages across the African continent. This of course ensures that in some cases children who may be otherwise abandoned are cared for and looked after. However, unfortunately it may also lead to some families who otherwise may have taken responsibility for the children of their deceased relatives handing them over to the newly established orphanages. As part of our outreach programme we did consider establishing an orphanage as part of the ZIS project but after conducting research in Zambia and seeking the opinions of local communities we concluded that this concept may not be as positives as it seems at face value. We have thus developed an outreach model that is designed to help the families of those children who have been orphaned.
It is an unfortunate truth that many of the children placed into orphanages by their extended families are victims of poverty. In most cases if finances permitted then the family would take care of the child(ren). In the light of this fact we aim to economically empower families to ensure that orphaned children do not become an economic millstone. As part of our outreach programmes the children from the wider community, whether in full time education or not, will be invited to attend our agricultural outreach scheme. As part of the scheme the children will be taught how to farm efficiently based upon the principles of environmental sustainability and organic farming. It is hoped that the skills that the children will learn and develop will be utilised on their own families land and thus ensure a greater level of self sufficiency. Moreover the children will grow their own crops whilst learning at ZIGS and will be allowed to take food and seeds home with them on a regular basis; after all it will be their hard work that has led to the crops growing! The beauty of this scheme is that the children will learn, develop skills and hopefully enjoy themselves whilst their families benefit in the short term from the food/seeds the children bring home and moreover in the long term due to the skills that the children will acquire and be able to apply on the homestead. We hope that when families recognise the value of the scheme they will want to be more involved and thus sign up for the adult education programmes….
Working with local communities
We will not only educate and empower our own students at ZIGS. We will also seek to working partnership with neighbouring community schools and communities. We will seek to establish an out of school hours adult education programme. This will include courses in basic literacy, numeracy and basic financial skills but also agriculture and environmental studies. Local farmers will be taught to explore the wider implications of the use of artificial fertilisers and GMO seeds and encourage to farm in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.
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