Improvement of educational conditions in Zambia

The Marist Brothers have overseen for three years the construction and the setting up of a new secondary school and professional formation centre at Chibuluma, situated in the Zambian province of Copperbelt. It is an old mining region, especially in need since the copper crisis produced a great deal of unemployment. The youth of the zone cannot find work since educational centres do not exist that could offer them professional formation and higher education. The level of poverty in the region is extremely high and a great number of young people ? unemployed and uneducated ? loiter in the streets, exposed to falling into networks of delinquency and prostitution.
To respond to these needs, we launched the project and in January 2006, we started to welcome the first 160 students, boys and girls of the 8th level who already occupy the first classrooms of the ?Saint Marcellin? school.
However, there is still a lot of work to do in order to introduce the rest of the levels of secondary teaching and to offer professional formation workshops sufficiently equipped so that the young people of the region can learn an occupation and thus find a possibility of dignified work.
In the current phase of the project, we need to find the finance for the specialised equipment of the science laboratories (Physics, Chemistry and Biology), as well as for the mechanics, woodwork and computer workshops. The acquisition of basic equipment is also necessary for both the classrooms and the laboratories and study rooms: libraries, cupboards, tables, chairs and school material.
When the phase of implementing the project is finished and when the ?Saint Marcellin? school is functioning normally, it will have 700 students, boys and girls who, thanks to the formation that they will receive in the school centre, will be able to contribute to the human development of their country and to find possibilities of dignified work to ensure their life and that of their families.