By Victoria Copeland | Country Manager
Last year, thanks to your generosity, we managed to raise $1,653 towards our starting goal of $6,000 to start building a skills for life centre in rural Sinazongwe. Last month School Club Zambia took a very exciting step closer to making this vision a reality by purchasing the land we would like to build the centre on. We have bought one hectare of land in rural Sinazongwe that is close and in easy access to all of our partner schools and Maamba town. This is a first for School Club Zambia and we are thrilled with this development on this project.
Climate change has intensified the problems of poverty, youth unemployment and the unsustainable use of natural resources in Sinazongwe. Zambia is currently suffering a devastaing drought bought on by El Nino and climate change with this rainy season recording one of the lowest rain falls since records began. The drought has been declared a national disaster and has resulted in a failed harvest, losing 2.5 million acres of planted crops. In addition to this, as the country relys so heavily on hydro-electric power, 8 hours of daily load shedding has been now been introduced nationwide,which will have severe effects on the economy. It is going to be a very tough year in Zambia and shows that measures against climate change are more necessary now than ever.
Our vision is for a Zambia where young people can lead in solutions to restore their environment whilst creating sustainable livelihood options for themselves and their families. The new Skills for Life and Climate Justice Centre will be the first of its kind in rural Sinazongwe, providing practical training to young people in climate smart agriculture, rainwater harvesting and eco stoves, as well as vocational skills such as tailoring, entreprenuership and IT. We have seen first hand how these adaptation skills can reduce incidences of extreme poverty and provide young people with skills that will help prevent them depending on charcoal burning or needing to move to town for work in the future.
We stil have a long way to go to raise enough funds for this centre, if you feel inspired to help us combat the effects of climate change and would like to donate towards the cause, or even if you could share and spread the word on our behalf, we would be very grateful.
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