Every Child Deserves A Chance, It Begins With One Book
It’s estimated that nearly 25 percent of Zambian children attend overcrowded community schools which are plagued with poor infrastructure and limited learning tools. On October 14th we launched our Book Fund campaign through which we intend to improve the learning conditions for over 20,000 children in community schools mostly located in the rural areas. Through the support of our partners we have so far been able to provide textbooks and Teacher’s guides that will benefit 2,689 children in 11 community schools mostly in rural areas with a few schools located in poor neighbourhoods in Lusaka. Even though it only costs about ZMW56.64 (US$3.20) per child sharing, children in most of these schools have to learn without the required textbooks or often have to share a book amongst many children. The community schools unlike public schools are severely underfunded as they rely on limited contributions from poor communities. Based on UNICEF Zambia 2018 report 60 percent of Zambia’s children live in poverty with most of the children in community schools coming from these poor households. While around 740,000 school aged children in Zambia are not in school and only about 30 percent of Zambian adolescents will attain a high school education.
As much as 23% of children in rural areas fail to attend school because of limited learning resources, this is why we will continue to focus on schools in the rural areas because the depravity of the learning conditions is much more than urban areas. ‘’ At Simpact Foundation we believe no child should be deprived of an education nor have to learn in such a difficult learning environment.’’ said Banja Mkwanazi Kayumba, Executive Director of Simpact foundation at the launch of the campaign. ‘Through the book fund campaign we will help transform the lives of over 20,000 vulnerable children through better quality education that will help them reach their full potential. In the words of Nelson Mandela – ‘Education is the most powerful thing we can use to change the world.’And we are doing that One Book at a time!’’ she added.
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