Living in a mixed cultural family opened my eyes to how people live in other parts of the world from a young age. Having visited my father’s home country of Egypt at the age of seven and then again as a teenager, combined with growing up on Sydney’s North Shore and having the privilege of attending Pymble Ladies’ College, two very vastly different experiences, inspired a desire for helping orphans and vulnerable children who have grown up in much less privileged circumstances.
At Pymble there was regular fundraising for charities, and we were encouraged to engage in activities to help those in need. I remember participating in the 40 Hour Famine as a teenager, and then later sponsoring a child through World Vision. I was involved in Crusaders at school and enjoyed serving the community whenever I had the chance (including the Community Service component of the Duke of Edinburgh, another Pymble opportunity).
My desire to help the needy grew, and in my early twenties I became an advocate for Compassion, which involved speaking at churches and promoting child sponsorship. Having a growing interest in Africa, I met and married my Zambian husband, Ralph. On our first visit to Zambia, I saw the desperate need of many children who were unable to attend school due to their poverty. As a primary school teacher I felt I could do something worthwhile using my skills, and made plans to start a school for vulnerable children in my husband’s hometown of Chingola, a mining town in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia.
Ralph and I decided to move to Zambia, and in the meantime my mother (Ros – also an ex-Pymble girl) and I established a charity in 2007 called “Blessed to Bless” (now “Zambia’s Child”). Mum still runs the Australian office to this day. With the help of family and friends, we began to support a struggling community school in Kitwe, another town near Chingola, and soon started a secondary and tertiary school sponsorship program.
After having three children Ralph and I moved to Zambia in August 2012; and in January 2013 we began Ipalo Christian Community School (ICCS) with twenty-four Grade 1 students and one local teacher. Things did not go as planned, as the land we had secured back in 2007 was apparently given to us in error, and we had to begin the whole process again. We started the school in a small room of the local council building in the Chingola suburb of Kasompe, our target area. There was no electricity or running water, which was more challenging for me than it was for the children who came from homes where this was the norm.
From humble beginnings the school slowly grew. By 2015 we had 90 students in Grades 1 to 3 (Grade 1 in the morning, Grade 2 in the afternoon and Grade 3 using a local church building). In September 2015 we were able to move onto our own land and newly built premises, thanks to the efforts of a committed team of professional volunteers in Australia and some generous corporate sponsors. ICCS students were very excited to move into the first three classrooms. The school also now had toilets and a hand pump to pump water from a borehole (at this stage toilet flushing was still using buckets!).
Fast forward another six years – and ICCS now has 255 students from Grades 1 to 9. By May this year our next stage of building work will be complete, and the school will have fifteen classrooms, a science lab, three offices, three amenities blocks, two cottages, three undercover eating and play areas, two converted storage containers, an outdoor cooking area, solar power and running water (we are still waiting for electricity to be connected, despite having paid the tariffs for connection two years ago). The staff has now grown to eighteen paid local staff and three volunteers. In 2022 we will introduce a Reception Class, and God willing by 2024 ICCS will have over 400 students from Preschool to Grade 12. From our tertiary sponsorship program (which is now winding down as we focus more on developing ICCS) there are close to 60 ex-students now gainfully employed in various trades and professions.
The school also runs adult literacy programs and thirty women (parents and other women within the local community) have also graduated from primary school in the past three years. ICCS runs a parent/guardian involvement program whereby every parent/guardian volunteers half a day per week at the school either cooking, cleaning or gardening. The school agricultural plot (including vegetables, chickens and pigs) helps to supplement the feeding program at the school and it is our goal that it will help the school become more sustainable in the long-term.
When we started this project, we did not foresee what the future would involve, and even though our family has now moved back to Australia for the sake of our children’s education (after 7.5 years in Zambia), this work will be a life-long commitment. Seeing the children grow and change, and observing the noticeable difference when a child starts school to three months later when their eyes are brighter, their hair is healthy, and their skin is glowing just from the nutritious meal they get each day at school – is the biggest reward. Watching our first cohort of students who began in 2013 graduate from primary school in 2019 was another pivotal moment. The students (not to mention the staff) cried tears of joy at what they were able to achieve and how far they had come in seven years.
None of this work would have been possible without the dedication and commitment of many people, in particular our Australian Committee of volunteers who oversee the governance and fundraising for the project, and most of whom have been involved for many years. In a world where there is so much evil and sadness (much of which we are often blissfully unaware of living in our blessed country), it is a joy to be involved in such life-changing work. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We all have the power to make positive changes either here or elsewhere around the world, in an area we are passionate about. What a blessing to have been given such wonderful educational opportunities as a child that have enabled me to help those who have not been so fortunate.
If you would like to learn more about the work of Zambia’s Child, or are interested in sponsoring a child’s education or making a donation, please visit the website at www.zambiaschild.ngo or contact Ros in the office on 0407 175 433 (or email her at blessedtoblessaustralia@gmail.com).
