Love+faith=differentworlds: Our new facility in the heart of the slums

I was very excited to see our new facility that we have rented right in the heart of the slums of Katanga.

Its incredibly hard to find any place in the slums to rent – let alone anything that is more than one room so God has really opened the way for us to find this place and we have a wonderful landlord.

Who is an elderly lady who fully believes in what we are doing and is excited to have us with her.

Our small compound sits right in the heart of Katanga slum and we currently have 3 small class rooms – and one large class room.

While most of the place has been newly renovated and/or built – we are in desperate need to finish those renovations. They were meant to be completed before the program returned this month.

Sadly though our landlords daughter over Christmas had a full term baby born sleeping. This meant with all the medical expenses she has used her remainder of the budget she had to complete the renovations. Which we understand.

We have been using the facility as it is – but we desperately need to get it finished and tidied and get the toilets put in – since each week see’s us working with 200 children!

An agreement has been made that if we can come up with the money for the remainder of the renovations in can be completed within a week or so and be ready for when school goes back. And then she will sub tract that off our rent.

We currently have rented the place for one full year so then with us covering the costs of the renovations we will get another months of rent.

So we are looking to raise $1200 as quick as we can to finish off the last classroom and have toilets done. We also will be concreting and roofing in between the classrooms so the children can sit there to eat their meal and also mean we can use the facility once the wet season arrives.

We don’t know how to raise the money that quickly – we can’t stretch our current read for life budget any more without having to deduct from feeding the children or letting a teacher go or something – which is obviously not what we want to be doing.

So we are asking you to join us in praying or helping us to fundraise for the $1200 so we can hopefully have the work completed in the next month ready for school to start back and ready for our skills training to start on the 1^st of March.

Part of the compound with one classroom shown.

one of our classrooms

The area that needs to be concreted and roofed in between classrooms runs much longer than photo shows ( runs behind where i was standing also - this will allow us to have children sit and eat their food in this area)

The largest classroom is being used but needs the floor now added and walls completed.

Hezekiah ready a day early for Read for Life to start :)

Our wonderful landlord and Robert discussing what needs to still be completed - she has been very gracious in allowing all the children who come to program to use her bathroom facilities and entrance gate while the work was still being done.

Hezekiah and mummy checking out the facility while daddy chatted - notice he thinks I'm taking a photo - CHEESSEE

Read for life is still running on Saturdays during school term and 3 days a week during school holidays – we currently run 3 sessions on those days and have 200 children registered for the program.

We also have a waiting list of approximately 100 children, with more families wanting to attend all the time!

The program is growing and expanding and we are excited for this year.

Our teachers ( 4 ) who have been with us from the beginning are very excited to now be in our own facility right in the heart of the slums, where these children live. They have worked hard to grow and expand the program in my absence and we could not be more grateful for a hardworking, trustworthy team.

We have found the families to be so supportive and receptive – with many mothers making sure they actually BRING their children to the program, to ensure they get there.

We have seen so much change in not only the reading ability of the children but even the behaviour too – even their mothers and families are agreeing!

Since through a normal school week the facility is empty – as of the 1^st of March we are going to be running Skills training for some of the mothers/guardians attached to the Read for Life program.

The first lot of skills training will be for approximately 20 women and run for 3 months.

This will run through the week in the morning and then in the afternoons we will be running adult literacy classes for the Read for Life parents.

Many of the families when we did a survey of Katanga slums listed 3 things as their biggest desires and needs.

- Education for their children ( READ FOR LIFE is helping to increase that)

- Skills training and jobs for parents ( Skills training will meet that)

- Literacy and English teaching for adults ( Adult Literacy will meet that need – many families have shared that even though they may have a job or a small shop or something – that they lose clients due to the fact they can’t read or write or struggle to speak a language that their client speaks – remember theres 50 different languages here!)

Along with starting Skills training - we are starting a Creche for 0-4 year olds which will run during Read for Life and skills training.

One of the issues we have with read for life - is most of the children come from single parent families - and often mothers have to go to work during the day - so you will find children as young as 5 bringing their baby siblings to their class - this is obviously making it difficult for that child to get the most out of the class but also makes it difficult for the teachers who are often the ones left to care for those babies/toddlers.

We also understand many of the women who are signed up to Skills training have children not of school age.

So we have employed one of our Landlords neices who is a nursery teacher and will set up one of the classrooms as a creche facility - she will sing and read to the babies which will hopefully ensure not only will they get a headstart but their siblings will be able to concentrate in class better!

We are very excited to see what God does with Read for Life this year and the Skills training.

There are other dreams and goals for this year but for today that’s enough to give you an insight in to why we need to raise the money as quickly as we can so that the Read for life and skills training can have the biggest impact possible!! 😊

Thank you for your prayers and support!

One of the classes in action - classes are currently down in size due to christmas holidays with many children going to villages to see grandparents/family.