DAY 4 Thursday 14th September 2023

Arrival at Nanga Special School

We arrived at Nanga Special school at about 11.00 along with two HHZ trustees, Mr Gondwe and Pastor Fundi, and we were warmly greeted by the Head teacher Mr Arthur Bweupe. As is the Zambian custom, we gathered in his office to be thanked for our visit and Mr Bweupe spoke eloquently about how HHI, through HHZ, has made so many wonderful improvements to the lives of the 60 special needs children (35 girls and 25 boys) and the staff in Nanga.

Education in Zambia is not free so there is a small charge of £36 per term to cover the students’ residential needs. However, Mr Bweupe explained that only 46% of the students pay and it is difficult to extract the money out of the remaining majority. Many parents ignore his reminders because they would prefer to forget about their children who are deaf, blind or have Down’s Syndrome.

Nanga School from the air

Nanga School from the air

As a result, the school has embarked on agricultural ventures, using a ‘start-up’ capital from HHI, to generate some income. The 217 banana plants are doing well, and the cabbages and eggplants are about to be transplanted. The harvest will ensure that there is food for the children and selling bananas is potentially very lucrative. Nanga is in a rural area and people will be keen to buy produce locally rather than travel to Monze. The irrigation system is working very well, and a booster pump has been purchased this month with HHI funding so that the water can reach the many crops further away from the water tank. The Nanga students learn to care for the crops; they water, hoe, and transplant seedlings as part of the Active Daily Learning course which is part of the school’s curriculum.

Mr Bweupe shared with us his thinking about starting to keep chickens so they too can be sold locally. Following our discussions, we were taken on a tour around the vegetable plots and Nik filmed the whole area with his drone.

Nanga School garden with water tower

Nanga School garden