Help train Zambian children and young people

Last month I visited Zambia for the first time and learned more about the struggles that young people must overcome in order to go to get an education. There are many reasons why young people drop out of school and even for those who complete secondary school, it isn’t easy to find work or make a living. That’s why vocational training centres have such an important role to play.

Kaliyangile Vocational Training Centre is situated in the main farming district of Zambia offering good opportunities for skilled farm workers to gain employment. The centre has faced its own challenges over the past few years and is not currently fulfilling its potential, although things are beginning to turn a corner. Beekeeping training is underway, and students are enrolled for tailoring and agriculture but are waiting to start. We hope to see the centre become much more active soon and thereby able to help more young people into training and employment.

We met with Persis, the Director, and the management board. There are currently three board members, and they are planning to invite others to join to broaden the mix of skills and get more local people actively involved. With support from Catriona, HATW representative in Zambia, the local team are currently working to renew the registration of the centre with Teveta (Zambia’s Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority).

HATW has supported the development of the centre over many years, and when you arrive at Kaliyangile, you see smart looking buildings and well-kept gardens. The new toilet and shower block is nearly complete and the facilities, including a large training workshop, are all in good condition. I checked on the trees planted to mark the 25-year anniversary of HATW, and they are growing well. It is coming to the end of the rainy season – when we arrived in Zambia, there had been so much rain overnight that the road was flooded, and we had to postpone our visit for a day while we waited for the water to subside! On a positive note, everything looked lush and green - the crops are thriving and there is plenty of grass for the cows.

Thank you for supporting this project. I look forward to keeping you updated with how things progress.

It has been a challenging and busy time as efforts to resume training were shattered by the ablution block roof being blown away by heavy rainstorms last rainy season. Due to this, there has been a substantial delay in the Vocational Training Centre being able to take on new trainees. The focus lately has therefore been on constructing alternative pit latrines, to allow the Centre to re-open and continue delivering its vital services to the community, equipping disadvantaged and vulnerable young people (who may have had little or uneven schooling) with vocational skills.

With the commitment of our overseas partners, the pit latrines are now completed and have running water. As such, we are pleased to share that the Centre has now opened its doors to new students, beginning with an initial cohort of 20 women and girls who have been trained in beekeeping; the training will support them to derive an income from the likes of honey and beeswax production.

We now look forward to welcoming further students, after a long wait. In addition to recruiting new trainees and delivering trainings, a major focus at the Centre now is the construction of a new ablution block, to replace the storm-damaged block. Thanks to support from HATW, construction of the new block is underway and once complete it will include five toilets and seven showers. This will not only support the health and hygiene of the Centre’s students and staff but will also enable the Centre to increase the number of trainees that we can take on at a time. We will keep you posted on how the construction is progressing into 2023.

Speaking of next year, we will be hoping to address other key challenges at the Centre; renovations and upgrades to the piggery are needed, including more space, a new weaner pen, better water drippers and improved drainage. The chicken houses meanwhile have termite damage and will need replacing with steel structures and equipped with new feeders and drinkers. We look forward to working with HATW towards meeting these challenges over the next year; our thanks to all those supporting HATW who have helped the Centre through some challenging times this year.

This June, Maggie Hickland (HATW Trustee) and Jane Powell (HATW Operations Manager) visited Kaliyangile and saw many of the developments and changes over the last two years. Jane writes:

"The vocational training centre has a very spacious new workshop building comprising two large rooms, an office for Persis the centre manager and a storeroom.

The toilets are being upgraded after a storm blew the roof off the block. Flushing pit latrines are nearly finished. Once operational, Teveta inspectors will give the necessary certificates allow trainees to be welcomed back to the centre.

The next step is to complete a full refurbishment of the old toilet block, septic tank and to instal better drainage.

The centre has had a run of bad luck with many challenges coming their way – Patrick, the chair of the Board, sadly died of Covid last year and he was one of the driving forces behind the project. He was also the owner of the land on which the project sits. We met with his son Khoza who has recently moved back to the area to farm and now sits on the Kali board. We talked to him about his plans – happily the family remain keen to support the project and will renew the lease at no cost to the project, in two years time.

We had a tour of the farm and small holding – the piggery and the chicken pen could do with some upgrading and this is something Persis is keen to do. The night before we arrived, they had taken delivery of 500 chicks which were being heated and looked after to replace the laying hens, who create a good income through the sale of eggs.

There are ongoing issues with livestock diseases in the area that affect pigs and cattle locally and so they were being very careful at the project to keep people away from avoid cross-contamination risks. This is a challenge for the project as the whole site is currently quite open and not yet fully fenced, so local people can walk across.

The pigs and chickens provide a good income for the centre in spite of these challenges. Kali benefits from having a retired vet on the board who supports and help with the animals.

The hammer mill continues to grind maize for the local community at affordable cost - this is another good income generator for the project. Someone works at this daily; other farm workers manage the pigs, cows and chickens.

We were able to meet some of the local women who support the project. They are part of CWAC (Community Welfare Assistance Committee) who help find vunerable youths in the local communities and bring them to the project to find suitable vocational courses for them. We greatly enjoyed talking to these women. They enjoyed a ‘trying on session’ of various different reading glasses that we had taken over! It caused a great deal of amusement as some of them could see very clearly when given something to read, but some of the glasses were far too strong.

We greatly admired their beautiful chitenge cloth skirts which they wrap around over their other clothes.

We hope the project will be able imminently to gain the necessary accreditation to bring in new trainees and look forward to hearing that the centre’s buildings are buzzing with life. Thank you so much for your support!

It is a new year and we look forward to a new beginning! Covid-19 cases having dropped down, we are positive and determined for a fresh year of vocational training.  Working in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare, we have been able to draw volunteers from the community to help us identify and recruit students from the local area. Several preparatory meetings have now been held with prospective incoming trainees.

Responding to the challenge of the damaged ablution block, HATW donations have meanwhile enabled the construction of two pit latrines and work is underway. A funding application has been submitted to rebuild the old block and we eagerly await news.

Together, we'll help build a better community! Thank you for all your help and encouragement.

The regular work of Kaliyangile has for some time, like in many other places, been interrupted by the pandemic and measures to cope safely with it. But work in the local community goes on, supporting many families and individuals living in poverty.

Persis the Centre manager writes: "To many, Kali is not just a project offering skills training but is a source of livelihood to a number of youths working in the farm.

For the community, milling maize cheaply saves a great deal of money enabling them provide a decent meal for their families.

Women too are very much participating. Weekly meetings to help young women with various hand skills like carpet making and knitting have kept the Centre vibrant and lively.

Together with your generous support and our efforts, we help change and shape the lives of youths in the community!"

Thank you for all your help and interest as we seek to redouble our efforts now that many of the government-imposed Covid restrictions are gone.