I am a new teacher at Dufatanye Pre-School, and began teaching at the beginning of the current term on May 11, 2009; I was hired in April.
On my first day of school, I arrived early as I was very excited to begin working with the students. I enjoy being around young children and was looking forward to teaching the three and four-year-old students. I was not prepared to see a large group of parents in the schoolyard, and even less prepared to see that they were building a dining hall for the pre-school! There were many men and women all cooperating in building a large structure from grass and thatch that would allow all 200 students a place to sit out of the dust while eating lunch. I had never seen this type of cooperation before and realized I was very lucky to be teaching at a school where all the parents were so supportive of their children.
I introduced myself to the parents and all the students and was made to feel very welcome. Unfortunately, in June one of my fellow teachers decided to quit because he was unhappy with the salary he was receiving. Thankfully, Sabah, the project manager, was able to hire a new teacher very quickly. His name is Edward and he helps me teach the youngest children.
The community continues to be very welcoming to both Edward and myself, and I am hopeful that the rest of the term will pass smoothly.
By Dominga Zuze
The new term for Kunachi Pre-School began on May 11, 2009. I enjoy working with young children very much, and despite being nine months pregnant I was excited to begin another term with my students. On May 12th I began to feel uncomfortable part way through the school day, but did not want to leave the children. I returned home at lunchtime and within one hour I was a brand new mother to a beautiful baby girl!!!!! Sabah, my project manager, stopped by my house later that afternoon to say hello and was very surprised, and happy, to see the baby. She told me I should have left school earlier, and that my maternity leave was starting that very day and would last until the middle of July.
Unfortunately, about a month into the new term the other teachers all quit! They decided that the salaries were not high enough for them to continue teaching. Thankfully, the teacher who was taking over my classes while I was on maternity leave, Samuel, stayed on and kept teaching all 160 students by himself while our Coordinator, Earnest, and Sabah worked to hire more teachers. God blessed our school and we found another teacher, Kelvin, quickly and Kunachi decided to hire Samuel as a full-time teacher. Sabah told me not to worry, but I thought about my students every day, and so decided to return to work on July 1st. I was so happy to be back with the children, and they were happy to see me again too!
It can be difficult to teach every morning and take care of my new daughter, but the rewards of helping my students learn and prepare for first grade makes up for the extra time and trouble. I am excited to continue teaching and hope to stay on at Kunachi for many more terms.
By Chitula K. Machalo
I am a pre-school teacher at Dufatanye Preschool in Block G. Dufatanye was formed in 2007 and I started teaching here in January of 2009. From the opening date until the end of the first week of school we tested our students to see if our pupils still remember what we taught them and to see what they need to learn. Almost all of our students have been successful so far.
The first week of this term the parents constructed a dining hall shelter for the students. It is currently made of wood and grass, but they can be very happy if someone can help them with bricks and plastics to build a permanent structure for the cafeteria. Despite that the salary is very little as compared to the work I do, I try by all means to offer the very best of education and the necessary service of teaching for the children in Block G.
Furthermore I would like to thank my PM for her support and co-operation at Dufatanye.
Thank you.
By Emmanuel Sengimana
In this month of May I found it very difficult to handle pupils because we had so many newcomers. It was hard for me to understand their languages like kinyarwanda, nyanja, and other languages. But despite the challenges, I am looking forward to the new term so that our students can learn once again and we can make an improvement to our community.
Thanks.
By Donat Kankaji
I am an Angolan lady, aged 34. When I came from Angola, I was a bit young, but I came half way educated and then completed my education here in Zambia. In 1997, I did a course in radio communications under UNHCR, and worked in their office as an orderly for two years. In 2000, I worked for another NGO called AAR as their cook. In 2003 I was working with AHA during Angolan repatriation activities as a Community Health Worker. In 2006 I did another course in cooking at Luanshya training center for six months.
In 2007 is when I came to join FORGE as a Portuguese teacher. I worked with them quite well for about a year, after that the contract came to end. Then in January 2009, I was employed again as a pre-school teacher in Block G, for Dufatanye Preschool.
As each and everyone knows, education is the foundation of peace, security, and progress. In the past years, there were other preschools in Meheba, but only in Block D. And the disadvantages were that teachers were making pupils to pay. You would find that pupils were paying 20-30,000 Zambian Kwacha per month, making it so difficult for many people to take their children for preschool due to lack of money. As you know, most people staying in Meheba are refugees, and for a person to be a refugee is something very difficult because a refugee doesn’t have food, good shelter, and good employment.
The other thing is, Block G is far to Block D, even if maybe someone has money to pay for the child, now what kind of transportation can somebody use to take their child 12km to school? I am thanking FORGE for giving us so many preschools in Meheba. We have a school for our children in Blocks D, F, and G, which means FORGE is promoting peace, health, and development everywhere in our society. Lastly I am also thanking FORGE for their kindness, let God bless you and be with you so that they will continue with the same and every child gains knowledge.
Thanks.
By Harriet Da Paula
First of all I would like to introduce our school. Kunachi Preschool is located in Block D of Meheba Refugee Settlement, at Road 36. This is the largest Block in Meheba due to its high population. We opened the school here on 12/01/2009. Before opening, we spent some days preparing a new building for the school, because it was moved from Road 44 to serve more students, and now there are over 150 kids registered, where before there were around 50. When the term began, it was my first day to be in front of pupils introducing my self.
On that day we did not teach because it was the day of welcoming our pupils to Kunachi pre-school. We tried to test them for monitoring and evaluation, basically to see how much they knew so we could know what to teach in the term. It was hard for us to get used with them because some never used to talk, they didn’t speak any English. Others were crying all the time because they had never been to school before, and some were even urinating in class. It was hard to control them while teaching. We thought it is going to be hard for us to get used to working with the pupils and for the pupils to be getting used to us as their teachers. The students were finding it very difficult to understand English when you tell them to sit down they will also answer ‘sit down’, and when you say stop making noise they will say also say, “stop making noise.” It was really hard for them to understand until we tried our best to use different local languages that were able to help them understand. As at now they are able to understand English if you try to tell them to sit down they are able to do so. They are able to do whatever you ask them to.
We came to discover that pupils in all three classes were in fact very bright. They like playing with toys, singing songs, skipping, collouring, and drawing. We decided to give them books and pencils when they started to learn to read and write, which made them even more happy to be in class. The teachers could start having fun in school when we could see the children changing and learning as they got used to the teachers and the things in the classroom. So we are very proud of this and we are waiting to open our school for the second term in May and to meet our students again since we miss them a lot.
THE END
I thank my PM for her support. By Chitula Machalo
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