Livingstone Community Projects Updates and Achievements from Q1 2018 - African Impact

AVG TEMP: 25°C

NYANJA LESSON: Iwe ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Hey/You

WHAT’S NEW ON THE GROUND? • We welcomed 2 new Volunteer Coordinators to the team, Sjeel from the Netherlands and Seb from the UK. • We have started working with Mulwani Secondary School, where we have held Women’s Health Talks and HIV Education.

• We have welcomed a new group of Grade 4 girls from Linda Community School into our Girl Impact Program – they have had an amazing start to the year.

• This past quarter we spent 245 hours completing home-based care, treating 384 people from different communities around Livingstone.

• We spent 31 hours at a local clinic and impacted 495 people. Our volunteers took vitals and weighed babies.

• We’ve completed 2 HIV education classes which included information on: how to prevent HIV, the stages of HIV, the medicine, the stigma and discrimination. The 16 attendees at the Tourism College improved their knowledge by 15% and the women from the area improved by 15.9%.

• Together with the building volunteers, the medical volunteers built ‘tippy taps’ at Linda Farm so everyone can wash their hands and understand the importance of hygiene.

• 12-year-old girls from the community of Linda started a new leadership program. We covered lessons about public speaking, responsibility, service and taught the girls some first aid skills so they can give immediate help to people in their communities.

• The community’s 10-year-old girls have been working hard on the (muddy) farm, even during the rainy season. They have harvested the carrots, the maize and showed us their knowledge about farming in a little test. Go girls!

• The Linda community’s 11-year-olds have been working hard on the topic ‘self-esteem’.

We covered lessons to improve their reading, listening and speaking skills in English.

They’ve learned all about how important friendship is and the girls were amazing in writing positive things about each other during one of our activities.

• The women’s group is currently focusing on learning more income generating skills such as sewing and how to operate a village tour for tourists. Since September, they have done 5 tours. Good job ladies!

• We completed a women’s health talk about cervical cancer, breast cancer, healthy living and pregnancy. The women improved their knowledge by 23.5%.

• We distributed reusable menstruation kits to the girls from Girls Determination after completing a 2-week session about menstruation. The kits will help them to stay in school during their periods.

•

•

•

•

• •

•

This quarter we spent 146.5 hours on the building project.

The volunteers built a wall at the local community of Dambwa using 1023 eco-bricks.

The wall is great as it separates the toilets from the “waste area”. Even more amazingly, building the wall used 100 kg of waste that otherwise would litter the environment.

We had an amazing turn out for the first ecoeducation class, with 28 students attending!

That’s a great start and we’re continuing to hold more workshops.

Volunteers have been teaching a range of different sports, including rugby, baseball, football, rounders and athletics. The start of 2018 featured a mini Olympics at each school – we recorded all the students’ times and measurements.

As well as learning the technical skills of different sports during PE classes, the students have also been developing their teamwork skills and sportsmanship.

We’ve also emphasized the importance of a healthy and balanced diet, the importance of vitamins, healthy exercise and the importance of fresh air and good ventilation during our Health Clubs. We have seen a MASSIVE improvement of knowledge already with the average test score improving by 35% over the quarter!

Our Girl Impact rugby team enjoyed an amazing training session with the Zambian Sevens National Team when they came to visit us in Livingstone!

“I really enjoyed my time with African Impact in Livingstone. I was on the building project which I really enjoyed! Besides the building project there were so many different projects every day that I could get involved in - this diversity was really fun and overall I enjoyed it a lot!"

– Stan, Volunteer, February 2018

•

•

•

•

We have had amazing volunteers working at Mwandi Community School on our teaching project this quarter. Volunteers have had fun and interactive lessons with primary school children about their home countries.

Adult Literacy Club has also been in full flow this quarter, with volunteers helping to develop basic literacy skills for our beginners and our more advanced students have been working on their descriptive writing, complaint letters and most recently, resume writing.

In Math’s Club we have had a huge focus on multiplications this quarter as we realized how much students were struggling with mental arithmetic. The emphasis on multiplication has meant that our curriculum-based lessons have seen a great improvement in understanding.

Finally, we have relaunched our Reading Club at Zambezi Sawmills School!

“In and amongst project work, we have had lots of time to explore Livingstone and take advantage of its incredible location. Some of the highlights have been walking with rhinos, zip lining over the falls and playing rugby with the Zambian Sevens Team. Seeing 8 rhinos on the safari walk from as close as 20m away was an incredible experience – it’s likely that they’ll be ‘extinct dinosaurs’ by the end of our lifetimes. To top seeing the falls the ‘normal’ way, we went on the zip line and saw the gorge from above. “ -

Sam and Hannah

“My time volunteering with African Impact was an incredibly happy and heart-warming one.

It was even better than I could have ever imagined. From the incredibly warm and welcoming staff at the accommodation and the ever friendly, helpful and awesome coordinators, to the vibrant and happy community of locals in Livingstone, the wonderful kids I had the privilege of working with and teaching, to the beautiful surroundings and epic adventures and activities available close by, all of it played a big part in making it a truly magical and memorable experience. I really enjoyed getting to teach the class on my own and I found that making the learning interactive by asking some of the children to come up and write the answers on the board, encouraged better concentration and participation.”

-Meg

The Livingstone Team