<<<<<   Raising Funds for the 2013 Youth Skills Training  Centre Bursary Fund

A brand new Bursary fund has been set up to help those who are denied the chance to fulfill their potential because they cannot afford the cost of Education or Training

The Lubwe Youth Skills Training Centre is very much the centre of teenage and young adult learning in the Lubwe area. We started the Skills Centre in 2006. It had been a long held dream of the Chiefs and older villagers since the Government had donated a quantity of basic hand tools in about 1999 some seven years before!

Prior to that there was no such institution available in the area.

I have long wanted to start a Bursary fund to help those who cannot afford the modest fees that the Skills Centre has to charge to survive, even with the grant Lubwe (Zambia) Fund has made every year since it started.

The Skills Centre is answerable to TEVETA - The Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority. 

I had a call from Pat Cole in Leicester (St. Ives Inner Wheel, 2nd Vice District Chairman) to say that a lady was enquiring about a suitable charity she might help, that did not spend its money on overheads and executive salaries. Pat kindly recommended Lubwe. I made various suggestions and spoke about the bursary possibility I had in mind. The result was that the wonderful lady very kindly donated £2000 to start the Bursary fund for ‘Education and Skills in Lubwe’. What a tremendous start.

A further £180 has since been added locally to this sum.

This Bursary can also be used to help those who cannot afford to progress beyond Year 7 (Primary School) which only teaches up to 12 years old. This is all the Zambian Government can afford to fund.

Mike Brozel & I well remember the approaches for help, mostly from girls who seem to be more ambitious, for what amounted to about £45, so they could go to Secondary School. They know that this is the route for escaping abject poverty.

Having sat in on lessons at the School in Kawambwa (north of Lubwe), where Abraham taught before he got HIV/Aids, I was very impressed with the high standard of teaching.

If you feel able to, please do help me to build this Bursary Fund, so we can change more lives.

Our funding in 2006 made the Youth Skills Training Centre possible and as long ago as early 2007 the Management Committee led by Julius Musamba began planning for the future. 

 

Since it started, the Lubwe Youth Skills Centre has been housed in leased buildings. The first of these must be vacated in around June of 2010, only a few month away. On the very positive side, a grant of £4000 pounds from the Government for a new building to replace the temporarily leased workshop has been given. The land needed for it was granted by the village Chiefs without cost, for the permanent use of the community.

 

By mid Sept 2008, all the main trench foundations had been dug, the footings built and the 60ft x 30ft base laid ready for concreting. The bricks from the local kiln were ready and further funding was applied for, but not received. We had to help.Construction of the building itself is a great training project for the Students, and their efforts build a future for those who follow them. See the pictures of the development up to Sept 2009 last year, at the start of the Rainy Season in October - earlier than normal. It will last through to March (when I am writing this).

 

Over the last three and a half years many students have been taught Building, Cutting & Tailoring, Joinery and Computer skills. We are lending, tools, sewing machines, supplies, etc. to any graduate that passes through the program so he or she can use them to work. Over the following year, they pay back into the school for their tools, and that money is used to purchase tools for the next graduating class.

 

So far the women who have taken out loans are doing extremely well. Every single one has been on time with their payments and a few are close to finishing their payments in only 3 months, meaning they are making 2, 3 or even 4 payments a month. A few of them have set up a Co-op and were commissioned last year by the area schools to make all of the uniforms for the current school year, which begins each January.

 

The men are slower, but such is the way in Africa. I don’t kid myself we can change the world but we can make a difference in Lubwe – after all, look what has been achieved already.

 

 

So please dig deep and donate now to help us to continue to give lifelong skills, to some of the poorest people in Africa.