We believe that long-term sustainable development can only occur where the issues that cause poverty are addressed in an integrated approach, working with partners and local communities to improve access to sufficient food, water, health, education and income.
Community Social Development
Working in partnership with rural communities and the Zambian government to provide education, promote healthcare, and address the issue of HIV/Aids.
Education
Class Sponsorship Programme
The class sponsorship programme has continued to assist 1,400 children, contributing classroom equipment, teaching materials and improvements to school buildings.
With the generous help of our class sponsors, Kaloko now supports 30 classes at our three schools as well as the crèche. This vital support is improving learning for pupils at Luansobe Upper Basic (LUBS), Kwesha and Kandulwe (which achieved an 88% pass rate at grade seven) Primary Schools and the Kaloko Crèche. Through a partnership agreement with Kaloko, the Zambian government provides the schools with some teachers and equipment. Those parents who can afford it also contribute, but this isn’t enough to keep the schools functioning. Kaloko’s class sponsorship programme helps to cover the other costs. During 2019 the grant funded by class sponsors paid for books, paper, pens, pencils, chalk, calculators, flip charts and much more. At Kandulwe and Kwesha Schools they are using some funds to slowly build very basic teacher housing. At LUBS it even paid for a photocopier to print test papers, worksheets and teaching materials.
Education
Classrooms & School Furniture
Too many primary school children in rural Zambia either have no local school to attend or have to take their classes in temporary buildings or outside under the trees, taught by willing but unqualified volunteer teachers. In 2015, Kaloko constructed a new double classroom block for the Malembeka School with the help of the local community who provided building materials to the site. The school had seven government salaried teachers, one unqualified teacher and 409 pupils, but previously only had three classrooms and one permanent staff house. In 2016 At Bwembelelo Primary School we built a double classroom block with a staff office and storeroom so at least 200 children are now taught indoors in good conditions. School furniture was given to two local primary schools to improve the learning environment for 420 pupils and staff.
By the end of 2016 Kaloko had helped to construct a total of 19 new classrooms at five rural primary schools,
Education
Support for Teachers
Across rural areas of Zambia teachers face a number of challenges including the quality of classroom facilities, school resources, and health concerns, where teachers may perceive that living in rural areas increases the risk of disease and reduces access to healthcare for themselves and their families. Possibly the top factor of concern is the quality of local accommodation. Improving the facilities attracts more qualified teachers and improve the prospects for increased government funding and investment in the school.
The construction of the two teachers’ houses at Bwembelelo Primary School was completed in November 2015 and construction started at Malembeka in 2017.
Health
Provison of Safe Water
The local population in Luansobe and Kashitu keeps on increasing and there is a growing pressure on the fragile local eco-system. Kaloko has been providing safe water sources for the last ten years and Kaloko drilled and equipped seven new boreholes during 2018, providing clean, fresh and healthy water to local families and children in an area where the previous water sources were also sources of disease and often dry for part of the year. Seven water management committees were formed, given tools and trained in how to maintain and repair their boreholes, ensuring that should the pumps break down the local communities will be able to quickly get them back into use.
Health
HIV/Aids Peer Education
A significant proportion of young people in the Copperbelt Province do not have a comprehensive knowledge of HIV/Aids transmission. These same youths very often have sexual intercourse before they attain 18 years and engage in high-risk sex.
Peer education is based on the reality that many people make changes not only based on what they know, but on the opinions and actions of their close, trusted peers. Using a highly interactive approach, the project focuses on life skills training specifically for teen pregnancy reduction, HIV/Aids prevention, substance abuse and rape.
In 2015-16 Our Peer Education programme reached more than 400 students to give them the information needed to make wise decisions about sexual health and the prevention of HIV/Aids.
Health
Multi-Purpose Health Outposts
Most health outreach clinics held in the rural communities in the Luansobe area of northern Zambia are conducted in temporary shelters, derelict buildings or under trees. Since 2010, the Kaloko Trust has constructed twelve new Health Outposts thus ensuring that all the sites where the Luansobe Rural Health Centre holds clinics now have a suitable venue.
The Outposts enable the staff from the local Rural Health Centres to run routine clinics and provide more accessible and comprehensive healthcare facilities to the inhabitants of many remote villages. Each basic building has a waiting room, a consultation room and a storeroom. When not being used for health clinics the buildings are used as classrooms for the nearby schools, for adult training and as general community meeting rooms.
Sustainable livelihoods
Reducing poverty, livelihood vulnerability and improving environmental sustainability through participatory approaches with rural communities and the Zambian government
Goats
Female-Headed Households Goat Rearing and Swapping Project
In 2014, Kaloko started a small goat stocking project targeting elderly women looking after their orphaned grandchildren. The project includes a training course on goat rearing and the building of a raised goat pen near to their house.
By 2019, 138 female heads of household across several communities had received training, and been given four goats each through the project. In each case their wider families benefit with an improved income for education and other important household needs. Since the project started in 2014, 552 goats have been given to the trainees, and the goats have been used for breeding (for sale) so there will have been countless more goats raised in the community to help these very poor families. In 2020 we hope to help another twenty-five elderly women to rear goats near their homes to sell at local markets and generate much-needed household income. These groups are also starting to become community hubs beyond the focus on the goat project and assist each other through friendship and social support in their elderly years.
Bees
Beekeeper Training and Honey Marketing Project
The Beekeeper Training and Honey Marketing Project is a sustainable alternative to rain-fed agriculture which includes a complete training on manufacturing and managing beehives.
In 2016, forty new beekeepers in the Kashitu area were trained and given a starter kit – swarm boxes, wooden hives and moulds for mud hives, to help them establish their own apiaries. They are supported by ‘contact farmers’ who provide ongoing assistance to the beekeepers over a wide geographical area.
'G3'
The Third Age Programme: Helping AIDS Broken Families
In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 to 60% of the estimated 13 million AIDS orphans live with their grandparents as sadly many of their adult children have died leaving behind grandchildren too young to look after themselves. Instead of enjoying a restful retirement, these elderly people are now struggling, on meagre incomes, to care for AIDS-afflicted family members and their grandchildren, often with little or no external support.
In 2016, the ongoing 'Granny Sponsorship' or 'G3' Scheme assisted 12 grandparents and their 31 orphaned school-going grandchildren who received uniforms and educational materials. The grandparents received maize seed and fertiliser to help them provide food for the extended family.
Sustainable transport
Low Cost Bicycle Distribution
Children and adults with bicycles in Zambia are able to reduce their commute times by up to 75 percent. They have more time to study, are more productive, and experience less fatigue. Farmers can travel four times further and carry more goods (load capacity is increased five-fold).
In 2018, six containers with 3000 donated second-hand bicycles collected in the UK by our partners Re~cycle were shipped and sold well below the market rate, providing huge benefits to community members.
