The latest news from Malimba School & Conservation South Luangwa SUMMER 2021

Dear Make Me Smile Supporters

Firstly we have lots of news from Malimba School Headmistress, Ezeliya Phiri…..

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our sponsors for making it possible for our school to run in this challenging situation of Covid 19 pandemic. I wish you well and stay safe!

First, let me acknowledge the entire Tribal Textiles team for their encouragement and support rendered to the school. We as Malimba teaching staff and pupils would like to thank you most sincerely for the love and support given to the volunteer teachers and pupils. We have managed to run the school with less difficulties due to the financial and moral support rendered to us. Without you all, things were going to be tough on us since our economy has really declined.

TEACHING STAFF
The school is currently having eight members of staff. Three are government established, these are myself Phiri Ezeliya – Head Teacher, teaching English Grade seven, Rita Banda – Deputy Head Teacher, teaching Grade four and Asia Mbewe – Senior Teacher teaching Grade Two.

Our volunteer teachers are Mbewe Naison, Grade seven teacher, Mkena Moses, Grade six teacher, Mphande Philip, Grade five teacher, Banda Jabes Grade three teacher, Rosemary Sakala, Grade one teacher and Milika Sakala, Early Childhood Education (ECE), teacher. Peter Chakwana is no longer with us. He went to join Police service, currently training at Lilayi. We replaced him with Banda Jabes. We would like to thank Peter for the contributions he made at Malimba. We wish him well in his new career.
OPENING AFTER THE PANDEMIC
Due to Covid 19 pandemic, our school calendar has not been consistent. We opened term two academic year on 10th May, 2021. On this first day, we experienced an overwhelming attendance of 410 pupils who were recorded present out of 432. Unlike in the past, few pupils could report on day one. One could ask what made the pupils report on day one in numbers! The answer is simple. Pupils were tired of staying at home doing nothing. They were eager to start learning at once!

Teaching started the very first day at 10:00 hours after cleaning classrooms and the surroundings. All teachers were present and were geared for work too! Teaching materials were given to all the teachers after conducting an opening staff briefing.

Second day of opening, learning started at the usual time 07:00 hours but we could not follow the usual timetable of eight teaching hours.  We were initially only allowed to be with the pupils for three hours to be on observation until we were given the green light to utilize all the hours. We were also told to decongest those classes whose enrollment was high, for example, a grade six class has 69 pupils which we had to divide the class it into three sessions; 20 to 25 number was allowed per each class to allow social distancing.

Feeding of pupils started on the second day. They eat porridge, which was supplemented by Mary’s Meals International organization. This feeding program also has attracted more pupils to come to school and hence the improvement on the attendance.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Academic performance for Malimba Community School has greatly improved. Our Grade Sevens who sat for their final examinations last year, managed to get good grades in all subjects. In fact, all our pupils were selected to various secondary schools in and outside the district. We recorded 100% pass rate.

We have the Let’s Read program at our school. The government, to help pupils in reading and numeracy activities, initiated this program. Our school performed well in the regional assessment. We had a 75% pass and that was a plus on our back!  Our pupils are able to write printed tests. We thank you for the financial support given to us. Our school timetable is structured in a way that pupils are always busy. We have assessments in week 3, 5, 10 and 13. Results are announced and presents are given to all deserving pupils. This has brought stiff competition among pupils. Everyone wants to do better in order to get a present at the end.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Already reported in the last newsletter, the project of constructing a washroom for girls by Project Luangwa was completed and handed over to the school on 28th May, 2021. The District Education Board Secretary being the Guest of Honour witnessed the handover. In her speech, she thanked Project Luangwa and all our sponsors for the kind gesture and urged them all to think further into the future as the school is in need of additional classrooms.  Ideally we are looking to raise funds to construct a 1 x 3-classroom block.

Pupils have increased in number and there is only one classroom block to accommodate 432 pupils.  As it is now, pupils are using a dining hall and a library as classrooms. The school also needs staff houses, electricity as well as a computer room and computers.

An update from Rachel at Conservation South Luangwa.

We are very excited to announce the Wildlife Ranger Challenge is back for the 2^nd year.

In 2020, when the COVID 19 pandemic hit, our scouts employment and their important conservation work suddenly became at risk. Everything was uncertain, conservation tourism funding came to a standstill and we wondered how we would get through the year. But we did, and we did this because of your very generous support to CSL, in large part through the Wildlife Ranger Challenge.

We are not out of trouble yet as we fly in to the second half of 2021 and are still feeling the economic impacts, in some cases even more so than in 2020. So please join in supporting our 2021 WRC team as they run 21km carrying a 22kg back pack on 18th September, in solidarity with rangers across Africa.
Remember that your support is matched with 25% from the Scheinberg Relief Fund  if you donate $100 CSL will received $125.

Thank you once again for your support to South Luangwa and we hope you’ll get behind our WRC team: James. Ken, Silota and Cesar.

With grateful thanks to you, our supporters, who make progress and improvements possible
Jacqui and the Make Me Smile Team