As we start the new year, it is a good time to report back to you on what we achieved in 2023.  It turned out to be a very good year. Please read below how we are progressing and with the help of your support what we have been able to achieve.

Zambia is still one of the world’s poorest countries, where life expectancy remains around 38 and where HIV affects almost one in eight. Malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition are still rampant in Zambia and at the time of writing there is a cholera epidemic raging through the country, and the schools are closed again. As every tenth Zambian is a child orphan, this part of the world needs a hand up and that is what we have been doing for the past 15 years. Despite all of this, Zambian people are kind, hard-working and cheerful and very willing to work with us to build a better world.

Whereas we started out with just Voster Tembo in Zambia and me in Ireland, we now have a growing team in both countries. In Zambia we have Emmanuel Phiri as a permanent volunteer for the past five years and he has been invaluable in developing our projects. Additionally, since last year we have a team of four paid librarians running our container libraries. In Ireland, Anna Rybalchenko has been doing an increasing part of the organisational work over the years and she now has primary responsibility for the financial side of things. Additionally, Ciara Brenner, a qualified teacher who has been out to Zambia with us twice has joined our team permanently to take the lead in educational matters. With more people on board, we are expanding what we can do.

It is worth acknowledging here too, that apart from the core volunteers in Ireland and in Zambia who work so tirelessly, we also have a huge network of supporters in Ireland who contribute time, materials and money to the cause. In the last two years we have raised a huge amount of money, mostly for the construction of our new library. Without those who provide trucks for transport, a warehouse to store materials or the books and bookshelves themselves, we could never have any of our libraries in Zambia. Over the course of the last year, Dublin City Council’s library services have been hugely generous in supplying their surplus children’s books and a very large amount of bookshelves and equipment from their libraries which are being upgraded. Numerous schools around the country have also donated similarly, so that the collection of quality materials for schools and libraries in Zambia has become a lot more efficient.

Because almost no schools in Zambia had books and there were no book shops or libraries in Ndola, we delivered three 40 shipping containers full of school books and children’s books collected in Ireland to Zambia. Two of our shipping containers were converted to be make public libraries and we distributed books to many schools in the area around Chipulukusu and Ndola. As we found, however, that many schools did not even have rain-proof roofs, we then came up with the idea of constructing a large purpose-built public library in Chipulukusu. Such a library will enable children from even the most deprived school to access quality school books and reading material in a safe educational environment, as well as providing opportunities for recreational reading for all.

The Library Construction

In May 2023, we finally started construction on our new architect-designed library on a site in Chipulukusu provided by the Ministry of Education. We had raised €143,000.00 in Ireland for the project. We started out with some trepidation about how it might be possible to manage such a large project as this project is bigger than anything we had attempted before.

In the event, we worked out a way of managing the construction carefully with a combination of having the right people in the right positions in Zambia, and daily supervision by use of Whatsapp from Ireland. As a result, things have worked out easier than we had expected.

Anna Rybalchenko and I have been able to manage the construction project from Ireland through Whatsapp calls and videos, and communication with Zambia is now so good that we can exchange calls and texts and photos with the construction team multiple times a day. We have an excellent site clerk, Mwewa Chilambe, who keeps the records and arranges purchases and deliveries and generally organises construction on the ground. Mwewa is our main daily contact and he works with a team of 12 builders, under the guidance of our foreman, Godfrey Ntala. Godfrey is hugely experienced and reliable builder who has brought us through all stages of construction with sound advice. We also have the overall advice and guidance of Mike O’Dalaigh, an Irish builder who lives in Ndola and who keeps coming up with innovative solutions to problems as they arise and generally keeps us straight. Mike has always made himself available to guide us and he visits the site frequently to check on progress. His suggestions and advice have been invaluable in keeping the project on track and on budget.

The finances of the project have been largely managed from here in Ireland by Anna Rybalchenko, who has set up a system of obtaining quotes and having purchases approved by the Site Clerk, and Mike O’Dalaigh as well as by our Zambian director, Emmanuel Phiri, before she then arranges payment from our Zambian bank account directly to the suppliers.

Without the advances in technology and communications in Zambia in the past three years, none of this would have been possible. However, we have been able to monitor progress on a daily basis and everything is going according to plan. The construction is proceeding to a high standard and we have a clear record of every cent spent and we are still within our budget.

At this stage, the building has been roofed, and we are currently putting down a terrazzo floor before we go on to windows. Then we have to move on to plumbing for the toilets and the electricity supply, which will be very important for our computer lab.

It is important to acknowledge here again the generous donations of many people in Ireland. It is due to all of you, that this project has come to life.

We also recently received further support from the Irish Government, as the Irish Embassy in Zambia has agreed to grant us €5,000.00 towards the cost of the windows. The embassy has always been very supportive, as our work in Zambia promotes goodwill and friendship between the people of Zambia and the people of Ireland generally.

Computer Lab

One important aspect of the new library is going to be the computer lab. Very few schools have computers, or even electricity. Our container librarians provide basic training in computer skills on laptops which have come from Ireland free of charge to the best of their ability. They also lend out laptops to individual schools, so that school children in even the most deprived schools can have some access to computers. However, these efforts are clearly not enough.

Our new library will have a computer lab which will be made available to all of the local schools for regular weekly computer lessons. We are appointing at least one teacher for the library who has a third level qualification in Computers and Education so that we will have suitably qualified staff to give computer lessons. When the computers are not being used by schools, they will be available to members of the public regardless of whether they are affiliated with any school or not.

CAMARA, the Irish computer and education charity, has agreed to equip our new library with one of their computer labs. This is a huge boost to us, because CAMARA have years of experience in this area and they are experts as setting up computer labs in deprived areas of Zambia. With their participation, we are assured that our computer lab will be one of the best.

Volunteer trip to Zambia and teacher training seminar

We brought another small team of Irish volunteers to Chipulukusu, Zambia in August 2023. This is a hugely important part of what we do, because of the skills these volunteers contribute to our projects. Chipulukusu is a slum area outside Ndola city of about 70,000 people which is largely without basic infrastructure like water, electricity or refuse collection, and almost no public facilities. This is where we have been based for the past ten years.

The overall goal of our efforts is to help Zambian people to lift themselves out of poverty, permanently. We do this by supporting education and business. Delivering materials and finance will have a limited effect without the skilled people to use them. Although, therefore, we have raised a lot of money and delivered a vast amount of  books and school materials (including desks, chairs, laptop computers, overhead projectors, reading schemes etc.) to Zambia. We always need Irish volunteers to travel to Zambia every year.

In August 2023 we had a teacher training seminar for 72 Zambian teachers. Our Irish volunteer teachers provided training in literacy and teaching skills, to better equip the Zambian teachers to make best use of the books and libraries which we have provided in Chipulukusu. They were also provided with computer lessons (including MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint) so that they can better make use of the laptop computers which we have in our container libraries and which are available for loan to local schools. At the same time, we also had 30 students from the Ndola vocational training college undertake a course in basic business and financial skills, so as to better enable them to keep financial records and to run a business when they graduate.

While in Zambia, the Irish team lived and worked in Chipulukusu in the same housing conditions as our neighbours. We lived without toilets or showers or running water or electricity or furniture or kitchens, but we made do with the local ways. In truth we were very well looked after by our usual team of kitchen ladies, who cook outside over an open fire and provide hot food every day. We also worked closely with many local schools and volunteers to make our visit a success from everyone’s point of view. We, the volunteers, got an awful lot of satisfaction and joy out of the trip too.

A key development for us this year was that the Ndola District Education Board Secretary (DEBS), Mrs Chewe Chanda, lent her personal support to our teaching seminar, so that our certificates for those who passed the examinations were issued in the joint names of our organisation (Zambian Development Support Foundation) and the Ministry of Education. This endorsement greatly adds to the value of our certificates and increases our connection with the Zambian Ministry of Education.

Container Libraries

This year we improved the structure of both of our container libraries and we provided new desks to the container library in George compound, outside Ndola. We also added another 17 laptops to the stock which we already had to support computer training. Our container libraries expanded on their adult literacy courses, as well as welcoming increasing numbers of children who come regularly to read. We now have over 1,900 children who regularly come to read at our two containers. Additionally, our librarians are conducting outreach programmes to introduce books to local schools to whom books and laptop computers can be lent. Increasingly, our librarians are promoting reading competitions among the children.

We are shortly to send a further shipping container to Zambia, loaded with more books and reading materials and school supplies, and it is hoped that we can open that third container as another container library. We are currently in discussions with the Ministry of Education to locate that new container in Kawama, which is another community on the outskirts of Ndola. This endeavour will depend on the availability of funds to deliver and convert the container, as well as concluding an agreement with the Ministry, but discussions are at an early stage.

Microfinance Project and Business Support

The microfinance project continues to provide a lifeline to business people who otherwise would not have access to funds to start or to maintain their businesses. In the past year, a lot of our funds were invested with welders and carpenters who made desks in our Enterprise Centre which were then sold to the Ministry of Education. We enabled those we supported to get three government contracts for the supply of school desks, so that they are now well-known and well-established as manufacturers of school desks. It is worth noting here again, that the seed capital to buy materials was only part of the solution, and a lot of the success of this group comes down to the diligence of Emmanuel Phiri, who guided the tradesmen through the government procurement process.

Another beneficiary of the microfinance project was a lady who was struggling to run a small restaurant business supplying food to casual workers at the bus station. Her business was struggling because although there were plenty of willing customers, she could not afford sufficient cooking pots or bowls to supply her customers. With a small loan, she was able to buy these items and so provide more food to more customers and this intervention has put her business on a sound financial footing. These people will join a growing group who (like our widows who are now trading successfully in chickens, tailoring and cement blocks) got their first start or early support with a small microfinance loan and some financial advice. As the financial support is in the form of a loan which must be repaid, the seed capital continues to come back to us so that it can be used as a revolving fund to continue to support more business people into the future.

Looking forward to 2024

A lot of our time was spent this year in administering the construction of the library and planning its opening and operation. That work is continuing and will likely dominate our activities in 2024.

As the completion of the new library nears, we must supply it with the necessary books and furniture. We have another 40-foot steel shipping container packed with school books and children’s books and desks and chairs and bookshelves sitting in Dublin and ready to go. We have encountered unexpected logistical problems due to the attacks on shipping off the coast of Yemen, as the usual route for our container would pass through that area on the way down the east coast of Africa. As of the time of writing, we are trying to work out an alternative route, but we have been warned that this container is going to be more difficult and more expensive than in the past. We will work something out to overcome these difficulties. Helpfully, the Irish Embassy has again offered to assist with the logistics of transport and the import of the container into Zambia.

Please keep helping and supporting

All of the above projects will require money from Ireland to build a better world. We need money to finish and equip our new library building, and to maintain and develop our container libraries and to pay the librarians’ salaries. We also need money to buy more shipping containers, and to send them to Zambia with books and book shelves and materials and we need money to develop the micro-finance and other projects. Please donate if you can. You can either transfer the money to the account of “Michael Nugent Zambia” which is held at the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street Dublin at IBAN number IE19 BOFI 901490 71262841, or send a cheque to me, made out to Michael Nugent (Zambia) or donate by credit card using the following link https://www.gofundme.com/f/build-a-library-for-zambia

We are always going to need good quality laptop computers, laptop bags, library books, children’s books and particularly good quality metal-racked book shelves which we can bring out to Zambia in our next container. If you hear of a school or library doing a clear out, keep us in mind.

We will always, also need volunteers to come out to Zambia with us. We particularly need people with skills in teaching or educational psychology and librarians, and those with computer skills, but almost everyone can have a talent to contribute. All volunteers will have to fundraise and pay for their own travel and expenses in Zambia. Volunteers will also have to undertake intensive training and take a series of vaccinations against the most prevalent diseases in Zambia. Volunteering to come to Zambia may be daunting but volunteers will have a great adventure with us and have a part in something wonderful.

Please help in any way that you can and many thanks for all of your support.