Mumbwa is a town in the Central Province of Zambia, lying on the M9 Road. Its district covers the western part of the Central Province bordering Kaoma and Western Province to the west, Namwala and Southern Province to the south, Lusaka and Lusaka Province to the east, Kasempa and North-Western Province to the north and Kabwe to the north-east. Mumbwa is known for its agriculture, most prominently its cotton and has a ginnery, the town also has a lot of prospects for minerals such as Copper, Silver and Gold with a number of Small scale mining operations taking place there.
With all of Mumbwa’s positive economic drivers, one cannot ignore the sharp contrast with the poor quality of life for the average Mumbwa resident.
The story of our interest takes us to a small community school in the Village of Kaindu on the outskirts of the Mumbwa Boma. This little community school is located within the area covered by the large-scale exploration license held by Oval Mining Limited. The community school has 170 pupils who attend classes from grade 1 to 7. The school has 1 volunteer teacher who has to teach all 170 pupils and teach all the different grades. The school has two structures made of logs, mud and grass that serve as classrooms with no windows or doors. The two classrooms do not have a black board for the teacher to write on, there are no desks for the children to sit on as they attend lessons (they sit on placed logs) and the grass roof that covers the two classes has weathered and allows for rain to come through the roof.
There is a teacher’s house near the classroom building that is made up of two rooms and has a iron sheet roof. One of the rooms serves as the teacher’s house and the other room is used as a classroom when the rains come during lessons.