Our School: Kamanga Lifeway Christian Academy

Kamanga Lifeway Christian Academy is one of Family Legacy's 17 private schools that are the in compounds around Lusaka.  The children who attend these schools are sponsored, but they still live at home.  Their sponsorship pays for them to go to school, have a uniform, and be fed lunch every day at school.

Kamanga is a newer school.  A lot of the schools used to be old bars, buildings, or houses, but Kamanga was built from the ground up, so it is a nice facility with a great courtyard for them to play in and to have assemblies.  The classrooms are all decorated nicely with posters made by the teachers.  We tried to show the teachers how to use the posters intentionally instead of just having them up, though.

front of the classroom 

Class "library" before I helped him reorganized it

Grades 1 through Grade 7 attend school there.  Grade 7 goes a full day, 7:30 to 4:30, but everyone else comes for a half day session, 7:30 to 11:30 or 12:30 to 4:30.  They have break time at 9:45 and at 2:45.  The kids sing and dance and play games.  I tried to join in a few times, but it turned into them piling on top of me!  They just want to be around you, to hold your hand, to touch your hair, etc.

playing a game during break

playing with Hildah and Beatrice at break

The boys "ringing the bell" for break time.  (Sorry the video is sideways!)


Lunch is served from 11:30 to 12:30.  There are some sweet caretakers who take turns cooking for the children.

Kathryn said that this community is very close and special.  There was a group of caretakers who felt so proud to have a new school, and wanted so badly to be able to share their appreciation, that they formed a group to do things for the school, such as come in and clean the bathrooms.  I can't imagine what our PTO members at schools in the states would say if we asked them to come clean the bathrooms!  These ladies do it with such an appreciative spirit.

Each session of school began with an assembly.  They sing and dance, say the Lord's Prayer, recite their One Way pledge (John 14:6), and march to class.  It is such a great way to start the day for these kids!

One of my favorite dances they did at assembly :)  

Also, I love how in sync George and Chewe are leading the dance.  George was his mini-me.

There are 5 teachers at the school.  My teacher was Chewe Tungati.  He teaches grade 6 in the morning and grade 2 in the afternoon.  He was great with both ages!  This is his first year teaching.  He said he went into the army for a year after he finished Grade 12, got a 2 year business certificate after that but could not find a job, so he went back to get a 2 year teaching certificate.  He wants to continue to go to school to add his certification to teach P.E. and Art.  He was great with both ages - grade 2 and grade 6.  He could go from helping the little ones tuck their shirts in at assembly to joking and connecting with the older ones.

 

The teachers at Kamanga are very close and work together as a team so well.  Chewe said that if he ever needed anything, he could ask any one of them.  When we asked them things like, "Who helped the children learn this song?", they would answer with things like "We all did.  It was a team effort."  They never wanted to take credit unless it was for the team.  They were all incredible to work with!  They were hungry to learn and to soak up any knew strategies they could in the 2 weeks we were there.  We were all encouraged by how much they seemed to learn and put into practice in such a short amount of time.