A tribute to Shabby

Two days ago I got a text message from George, the headteacher at Simakakata Community School in Zambia, telling me that a friend of his who I had the honour of meeting a few times had died. Shabby Aongola lived in the small compound of huts just a few hundred yards from the school, which is home to the blind and disabled community of Simakakata. Shabby was the voice of that community, he was a representative on the school PTA, took their concerns to the local chief, liaised with the church authorities and negotiated deals for help from local NGOs and organisations like Care.

It’s my understanding – and I may be wrong – that until Shabby arrived at Simakakata from an even more rural village further south, there was no provision or care for the disabled in the area. Working with the local church he helped to get funds for the compound, and encouraged them to act collectively. He helped to educate people about their rights and organise the delivery of the state benefits to which they are entitled but rarely received.  A soft spoken, serious man, he was their agitator-in-chief and earned them respect in a country which rarely even recognises they exist.

Shabby was blind – and I regret never asking him why, I assume he suffered from trachoma – as is his wife, who suirvives him. Together they maintained a small allotment-sized strip next to their hut on which they grew corn and kept chickens. They also raised a family: two daughters, the beautiful Holiness and Universe. Both children were enrolled in Simakakata school the first time I met them. The last time I saw Shabby, Universe was just about to start middle school in Kalomo, 7Km away. He was distressed because he didn’t have the £20 needed for her term fees, without which she was unable to start school.

Naturally I helped him out – getting his daughters (who are both completely healthy) an education was one of the most important things to Shabby. He was one of the driving forces in getting Simakakata school established before George arrived. Having a school nearby was essential for the disabled community, who are dependent on the healthy children to look after them. Either the children wouldn’t have been educated, or the parents would have to follow them to Kalomo and probably ended up begging on the streets. The school directly enabled the people of Shabby’s community retain their dignity and standard of living.

So it was going to hurt, sending Universe away. But Shabby’s pride in his daughter’s achievement overcame all. I have no idea what’s going to happen to the family now. I wish them the best, I fear for the worst. My thoughts are with them.

Apparently Shabby was taken ill quickly, and deteriorated over a short period of time. A horrible reminder that while I have many happy memories of Simakakata, and hope to visit again soon, life is impossibly unfair and hard for many of the people who live there. You can read more about Simakakata school at the LearnAsOne website. I encourage you all to donate if you can.

He’ll be missed by all who knew him.

Shabby with his daughters Holiness and Universe (Image credit Brenda Veltdman/LearnAsOne)

A new way to see London

The things you see when you take a different mode of transport...

Just a short post to thank everyone who sponsored me to take part in the LearnAsOne Founder’s Challenge yesterday, walking 26miles along the bank of the Thames and taking in 19 bridges along the way. While it may sound a bit weedy compared to, I don’t know, running the same distance, I was pretty astounded at how hard it was to walk that far in a day, with only one break, when you’re not really used to it. I can barely walk today, and the blisters are going to be there for weeks.

Not that I’m complaining. We covered less than two thirds the distance that Saviour and her friends cover in a week, just walking to school. Often they’ll do that barefoot and without water. Which makes me a giant pansy really.

The good news is that we raised about £600 in total, all of which will go towards the next classroom at Simakakata. There’s no admin costs involved with LearnAsOne – all the cash goes straight towards building materials for George. If you want to donate, you still can via my Just Giving page.

Many plasters were used in the process of this walk.

As a side point, I can also say that the walk was great fun. Not only were Steve and Claire excellent company, but as someone who mostly knows London via the underground network, I saw a lot of the city I’ve never seen before. Walking in from Richmond put a lot of the geography which I’m abstractly aware of into context for the first time. It was in turns surprising and beautiful, although it did leave me wondering who on Earth is buying apartments in all those super rich developments that are spreading out West. There’s clearly still a lot more money in the capital than people would have you believe.

Turning a table

Hand made quality, that is.


In Ancient Greece, Plato used the idea of a table to discuss the philosophical notion of form. This table, however, is much more practical – it was built by Grade 8 students at Good Hope, a school in rural Zambia that George used to teach in. Makes my Garfield penholder I made at a similar age look a bit rubbish, doesn’t it?
The thing is, most of these children are from families of subsistence farmers who are mostly illiterate. Giving them a real skill like this to fall back on is incredibly important – there’ll always be a demand for skilled carpenters.
This is what George is trying to achieve in Simakakata – it’s the simplest, most clear expression of his vision there is.

How my wife started a nursery school in Zambia

Kids at Simakakata on the first day of term. Now with added windows.

A chance encounter with an administrator from Care International today resulted in my wife opening a nursery for the people rural of Simakakata in Kalomo District, Southern Zambia.

She doesn’t know about it yet, so let me explain.

Today was my first day back at Simakakata Community School, finding out what’s changed over the year and a half since I last visited. I’ll share more thoughts about that here and on the LearnAsOne site, but just as I was leaving, Boyd from the Kalomo Care office arrived – also to check on the progress the school has been making (excellent, in case you asked. Since last year, the Grade 7 pass rate has doubled).

Boyd asked George, the headmaster, if he’d be interested in a project to build a pre-school playground using locally sourced materials and recycled tyres. It wouldn’t cost much, and Boyd believed he may have some funding left over from a similar project further north that he could use.

“Not at the moment,” replied George, “We had a nursery school, but the teachers were recruited from the community and had no training, so they left. We have a room and equipment at the church hall, but it is not being used right now.”

I asked George why a pre-school was important, when building the primary seemed to be the priority.

“One of the big problems we have is that when children start Grade 1, they are not ready,” he explained. “They speak no English (the lingua franca in Zambia) and don’t know what school is for. Often they struggle from an early age, and then they stop coming. With a pre-school, we can help the children and the parents as well to understand what school is for and how they will benefit in the long run, and the children won’t start Grade 1 already behind those from urban areas.”

No pics of the nursery yet - I'll visit tomorrow. So here's one of the classroom LearnAsOne has funded being built.

In order to make the pre-school work, George is convinced that he needs to hire a professionally trained and committed specialist teacher. He’s done the sums, and reckons he would have to charge families around 45,000kwacha (£6) per term, but because the local subsistence farmers don’t understand the benefit, they are unwilling to pay.

“It will cost us a million kwacha per term to hire a teacher,” he said, “If we could just get it going and people see the benefit, I’m sure enough children would come.”

By a happy and strange co-incidence, just before I left for Zambia my wife gave me £200 to pass on to George. She had an unforeseen windfall last year, and wanted to give some of the money to Simakakata. After buying some Christmas presents for the children there (shoes for some of the ones who had to walk in the rain barefoot), there was about £150 left over – which is almost exactly one million kwacha.

I’m not going to ask George to dedicate the new nursery to Tamsin, although it’s certainly a thought, but the money will subsidise it for at least the first two terms by supplementing the fees of those who can pay until the whole community sees why it’s a good idea. That’s the plan, at least – if it works, it’ll show how a little really can go a long way in development.

Back to Simakakata

I'll be making a fool of myself in a bigger classroom

Here’s the post I’ve written for LearnAsOne explaining the next few days.

“Season’s greetings and a happy new year. For those of our supporters who’ve been stuck in northern Europe’s coldest winter for decades, my commiserations. I’ve been away in South Africa visiting relatives for the festive period, and have been slowly baking away in a hot, muggy climate for the last couple of weeks.

“I will atone for my good fortune, though. Since I’m in this part of the world anyway, I couldn’t resist treating myself to an extra present – a plane ticket to Zambia and a journey to visit our friends at Simakakata.

“It’s been nearly 19 months since Steve, Nerys, Brenda and I first went to see George and his staff at Simakakata Community School, which is just outside the historical capital of Zambia, Kalomo. Then, over 200 children were receiving a basic education in a derelict farmhouse. They had no access to clean water on site, little in the way of classroom furniture and got by largely thanks to the dedication and passion of their teachers.

“New term begins

“I can’t wait to be there when term starts on 9th January. I’ve spoken to George by phone several times over the last year and a half, so I know that thanks to funding from LearnAsOne and Care International a new schoolhouse has been builtand is slowly being equipped up to standard. I know local government has begun work on a borehole for the site, and that several new members of staff have joined George, Sonia and Edwin.

“Thanks to supporters of LearnAsOne, who have read, watched and listened to the community telling us what they want, rather than simply sending what we think they need, the people of Simakakata have started on an exciting journey of development. Their children will receive a proper, high standard education from which the whole community will reap the economic benefits. With just a little bit more help from us, and you, this chapter in their history will be finished and they’ll be well on the way to self-sustainable development for the future.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting George and his team again, and finding out how much has changed and what still needs to be done. There will be lessons for all of us to learn from the work of the last 19 months and, as ever, I’ll be posting updates with photos throughout my trip and when I get back to the UK later in January.”

Which I think says it all.

Back to Simakakata

The new school is well underway - it will change the kids' lives forever.

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, my wife and I were talking about plans for January. We’re going to South Africa for three weeks over Christmas to see family in Johannesburg, and I’m planning to make my way up to Simakakata in Zambia while we’re there to see George and the school and find out how things have changed in the last year and a bit.

The only question was whether I’d try and squeeze it in for a few days before Christmas, or arrange to stay on for an extra week or so after Tamsin and Tabby go home. On the one hand, doing the latter gives me more time to visit Good Hope as well and shoot lots of video for a story I’m putting together, on the other I’m terrified about spending six weeks out of the office. Especially as that time of the year is usually quite busy for freelance journalists, filling in while everyone else takes the holiday off.

As we were talking about it, I got a text from Sonia – perhaps the woman I admire most in the world. I haven’t spoken to Sonia since last May – I’ve only got George’s mobile phone number and she’s not been at school when I’ve called. A simple text, just to let me know her number. I’m not a believer in signs and all that, but the coincidence has made my mind up. I’m calling to change my flights to the later one today.

Only one question remains. I want to make sure that I’m not going back empty handed, so plan on doing some fundraising for LearnAsOne before I go.

Saviour - the eight year old AIDS orphan who's now top of her class. There won't be any computers in the new school though - running water will be the first priority before power.

So far, three classrooms have been built using bricks made by the community and extra building materials bought with donated cash. It’s been absolutely life changing – Saviour is now top of the class and well on her way to achieving her ambition of becoming a teacher. The government has agreed to send more teachers, and there’s even an unfinished borehole been sunk. In order to improve the quality of teaching and take more children from the community beyond grade six, more classrooms and teachers’ houses are needed. George still needs more help running adult education programs and maintaining his HIV/AIDs health outreach volunteers. The community are desperate to build the school and throwing all their weight behind it – they’ve seen how, in nearby Good Hope, an entire town has built up around the school turning an improverished, disparate community into a developmental success. They want to repeat that in Simakakata, but need just a bit more cash to buy things like windows, roofing timber and desks that they can’t build themselves.

I was trying to think of something simple that I can do – like a sponsored write-at-thon or something – but came to the conclusion that that isn’t really the point. So if anyone any ideas for a good challenge that will raise money for the next vital classroom block at Simakakata, please get in touch…