Painting at 'Pastor Sue's'

Firmly established on the itinerary for the annual Grace Academy Zambia trip, is painting at King's School, Mukobela, run by our friend, affectionately known as, Pastor Sue. 

Mukobela is a village, in the bush about an hour from Lusaka.  Sue set up Kings' School to provide good quality affordable education for the children from the area.  Starting with a pre-school class in her home, then building two classrooms, followed by another two classrooms, as those first children together with many more, graduated through the grades.



In 2006, she then started an ambitious project to building a secondary section, so that children could complete their schooling to Grade 12.  The building was completed in 2008 and Grace Academy students painted the long central hallway. A couple of weeks later the building was officially opened.

In 2009 GA students painted many of the classrooms off the hallway, and all of the classrooms were painted white.

Then in 2010 another group of GA students and staff, completed the classrooms and painted the pre-school, which was badly in need of a lick of paint.



This year, across two days, with half the group travelling across to Mukobela on each day, GA students repainted the central hallway, in bright yellow, more durable paint...



...and also painted a newly built teacher's house.





This house has been prepared for a Maths teacher from GA, who came on the 2010 trip and was so impacted by what he experienced that he decided to plan to come in 2011, when the UK school year ended.  Many of the students know him well, so painting his home in a variety of bright colours, and then leaving welcome notes around the walls for him and his new wife, made the painting task more enjoyable.



When we were there in July there was still much to be done: windows to be fitted and glazed, and not least, the outside bathroom to be finished!



In his photo Sue is explaining how the bathroom will function, with a long drop toilet and separate shower area.



By now, Chris and Suzzy will have arrived and be settling into their new home, together with a completely new lifestyle.

 They will cook mostly with charcoal and may use an iron filled with charcoal...

...and draw water from the village pump:

 The secondary school now has paint around the windows:



 ...Sue's office has brightly coloured curtains..

...and the staffroom is well used.

Other rooms look like this...

As with most of the building work at Kings', staff and students made these lecture chairs, with built in table.
This is the primary school, now with display boards on the walls:

All this looks fairly primitive, until you compare it with most of the surrounding housing....

...and the local transport is by ox cart!

Our visit to Kings' continues to be one of the highlights of the trip, as students and staff are amazed by Sue's vision and passion to improve the educational opportunities, and hence the long term prospects for rural Zambians.