Back in late June on a bright, warm Zambian winter’s day Ruthie and I walked around Linda School with the Headteacher, Doreen chatting about where to site new classrooms. For Doreen this was a key stage in making her dream of a secondary school for Linda a reality. For us as more recent members of the VisionZambia team it was exciting to be there at the outset of a new development, on the ground and involved in the planning. The new classrooms will house Grade 10 and 11 students and take the first students in the next academic year. This will offer the children of Linda the prospect of gaining the qualifications they need to get a job or go to college. VisionZambia had received a large donation from one of our regular supporters and this enabled us to commission the first building as we launched a campaign to raise the rest of the funds needed for our education campaign.
The next day we met with the potential builders, project manager and parents. A lovely reunion ensued after the builders and parents recognised each other from working together on another project at the school twelve years earlier.
Mutual trust and respect in the group was quickly established as we looked at the Ministry of Education’s designs and architects’ plans and discussed appropriate materials and size for the building. We agreed to use good quality roof sheets, timber roof trusses, standard windows, secure doors, burglar bars on the windows and concrete coloured flooring which would be practical, functional and cheap.
The plan was to start building in August with a 14 week programme so that the building would be ready to be opened in the autumn and take the first students in the new academic year in January 2019.
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