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Reading, writing and pig-rearing in Zambian schools
Girls at the United Church of Zambia's Mwenzo Girls School are preparing for the future by learning agricultural skills alongside their regular lessons.
Farming skills might save them and their families from hunger in the future, said CWM missionary and current headteacher Alison Gibbs. "Salaries are so poor that even teachers and nurses need to be able to grow food for their families."
Since January 2006, when Gibbs arrived, staff and students built a piggery for five pigs, one of which was eaten by the girls.
Women who can earn their own living will have more respect, Gibbs says. Also, with a life expectancy of around 40 in Zambia, women have to be prepared that their husbands might die and leave her with children to support.
Students helped plant beans and green vegetables, tomatoes and bananas in the vegetable garden and sow five hectares of maize, a staple food, for harvesting in May.
"It's not enough for the whole year but it's a start," Gibbs says. "The plan is to be self-sufficient in foodstuffs as far as possible."
In 2007 they plan to start raising chickens.
Beccy Beard
26 January 2007
