When Dorothy Nsuuma started Crown of Life School in 2001 in a local community hall with just 15 pupils, she couldn’t have imagined how the school would grow to over 650 pupils from nursery class up to Grade 12 on a new site.

When Mission Direct first met Dorothy in 2009, there were 300 children at the school, meeting in a cramped church hall. With substantial funding from Christ Church in St Albans, a new primary school was built between 2010 and 2012 on a green field site on the edge of Lusaka. Since then, the school has added more classrooms and a second toilet block funded by Mission Direct volunteers, allowing the school to expand to include secondary grades from 8 to 12. In 2022, the school opened a Science Laboratory funded by Christ Church.

Crown of Life School serves the nearby shanty compound of Ng’ombe and the surrounding rural communities, which are being overtaken by the outward growth of Lusaka. The school has an excellent academic record, with most pupils passing their grade 7 examinations (end of primary school) in recent years. School fees are about £7 a month for primary grades and £10 for secondary, but many parents cannot afford to pay. In fact, about a third of the pupils attending the school do not pay fees and many pupils are supported through sponsorship schemes.

In 2024, Mission Direct plans to build a Classroom at the school, to provide better facilities for the increased number of pupils. We will also be painting recently-completed classrooms at Kiine School. The estimated total cost is £12,000.

If at the end of the project there is any surplus it may be allocated to our general project development fund, designated for future projects in Zambia. Any Gift Aid element will be used to fund Mission Direct's general operational and administrative costs.