We decided, before living South Africa, that we would pick two schools (one in Zambia and one in Kenya) to donate stationery and teaching aids. In addition, we bought two soccer balls (with pump) with the SA flag on it (since we are hosting the 2010 World Cup) and a map of Africa. We also bought packets of vegetable seeds to assist with the school's feeding programme.
At Tongabezi Lodge we heard about Tujatane Trust School, and we immediately decided this would be the school in Zambia for us to make our donation. See our blog entry on Livingstone to hear about our visit to the school.

(Courtesy of Tujatane school)

Tujatane, Tongabezi Trust School is a primary school which was set up to help educate some of the local children in the area who came from underprivileged backgrounds and would otherwise not have the chance of a good education. It began in 1996 with 15 children and now has over 160 children who all walk to school - some from as far as 1 hour's walk away. Vanessa Parker runs the school and donates her time on a purely voluntary basis. Vanessa's husband Ben started Tongabezi way back in 1990.

The aims of the school are to give as many underprivileged children as possible within walking distance a privileged education by offering small class sizes, quality teachers plus an assistant in each class. The children participate in a variety of extra-curricular activities such as computers, sports, music, drama, cultural dance, chess and art.

The school currently has six classrooms, an office, a library, a kitchen, an amphitheatre, a storeroom, a computer room with six donated laptops and a fantastic new music room.
Each afternoon, between 14h00 and 15h30 the children participate in extra- curricular activities - Drama, traditional dance, poetry, chess, sports, art and choir. Their performing arts group have been especially successful in NATIONAL competitions! Winning 1st prize in Poetry (2007) and 1st and 2nd prize in traditional Dance and Drama (2009).

The students at Tujatane experience a privileged primary education in contrast to the very under-privileged rural backgrounds they come from. With this opportunity they are reaching for their dreams and for their futures.

The children from Tujatane come from families with no running water and they generally live in one or two roomed mud huts. The children collect firewood to use for cooking, collecting water, and cleaning their uniforms in buckets. Tujatane is run purely from donations collected from donors around the world.

Education in Zambia is oversubscribed and underfunded. If you would like to give a donation or are interested in Tujatane's sponsorship programme please contact them.

It takes only US$10 a month to feed one child. They have a feeding programme at the school where the children get porridge in the morning and a meal at lunchtime. For most of these children, this is the only meal they get a day.

You can sponsor in various ways: sponsor a student or member of staff, make a donation so that they may buy an item from their "wish list" (see website for this) or send small items to them by post (large/heavy items attract customs fees).

The school at the moment has an extremely bright young boy studying in South Africa on a bursary at a private school The school is in desperate need of donations for school uniforms, flights home and other school costs. As soon as we receive more information on this, we will paste it on our blog. I am waiting for Vanessa to send me an email with the information.

You can contact the school director Vanessa Parker at [email protected], or [email protected] or visit the school's website www.tujatane.com