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| | | "Rhino SIghting In North Luangwa by John Coppinger"
29 August 2010 00:00 | | | read more... |
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 | Remote Africa Safaris Newsletters | |
"TAFIKA FUND NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2009"
- 11 November 2009 00:00
The Luangwa Valley is heating up... literally and figuratively. We are enjoying a mind blowing windup to an excellent game viewing season with little wartlets charging around madly, spindly legged baby impalas, leopards and lions aplenty.
Although our funding reduced this year due to 'GLOBAL', Zambia's description of the global recession, Tafika Fund forged on with reasonable success. We supported 21 high school students, 5 teachers at training college and 3 other skills students (an accountant, a mechanic and a nurse). In addition we paid 6 teachers salaries at Mkasanga Basic School plus a watchman/maintenance person to take care of the school.
Every student at Mkasanga Basic School was supplied with their stationery requirements throughout the year, making teaching much easier as all students had exercise books to write in! Generous numbers of footballs and other school supplies were donated by Remote Africa Safaris' guests to about 10 different schools in the area. This encouraged the creation of a football league throughout the Mwanya area, resulting in daily requests for more footballs!
Limited medicines were provided to the Health Post (clinic). Instead we paid the wages for an assistant to the medical officer throughout the year. She has benefited from this learning experience and was able to treat minor ailments and provide first aid when the medical officer was away.
In a further attempt to upgrade the skill levels of the women in Mkasanga Village, Rona, our caterer, trained 3 young ladies and a young man to sew. We will continue with this program next year in an attempt to develop a village industry, sewing school uniforms, safari clothing and curio items for sale in the Tafika shop. The ladies made some lovely hats and mobiles of stuffed animals and seed pods which have sold well.
In June we were offered an exciting opportunity for our foremanˇ¦s daughter of 18 years to travel to an Italian hospital in Khartoum, Sudan, for a mitral valve replacement operation on her heart. The programme required her to provide her own air ticket and the Tafika Fund was able to foot the bill; Elidah Zulu has returned to Zambia in excellent health.
We are happy to report that we finally have a female Grade 12 graduate, Gertrude Zulu. We now seek funding for her to undertake a course in "Front Office Operations" in Lusaka. We hope to conquer the young village girls' irresistible lure of marriage and babies, so we cannot wait for a more favorable financial climate to get Gertrude qualified! But unless some large donations materialize before the year end, we have decided not to commit to any other new students apart from the top four Mkasanga School leavers commencing Grade 10 in 2010.
Should anyone be interested in supporting our educational programs for the people of Mkasanga your donations will be very welcome. We are feeling the pinch quite seriously and currently have enough funds for the first term only. We budget $550 per year for high school students, $1500 for skills training/annum and $1700/annum for a teacherˇ¦s salary at Mkasanga School.
A big thank you to our wonderful guests who have kept the dreams of our youth alive with your generous support in 2009! We wish you many blessings in your own lives.
Carol Coppinger, Francisco Mwanza and The Mkasanga Community.
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| Comments to this story |
| 24 February 2010 : 15:42 | | Hi Carole. We are so impressed by what you have achieved. And proud of you. Well done all. Jane | | No Website. | | Posted By: Jane Clegg |
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