RHO Appleseed Keeps Growing and Changing

We have been very excited about the happenings at RHO Appleseed School this month. We have had 6 fifth grade students from American International School, visit and interview us and Mary as part of a big fifth grade project called Exhibition. Two boys are doing their exhibition project on Hunger and Nutrition and three others are doing theirs on Daily Life of Impoverished People of Lusaka. As part of their research they came to RHO Appleseed to see the lives of the kids in their school environment. They played with the students and helped to make and serve their lunch. Mary allowed them to come to her house and see how she lives. She was so gracious. She answered all of their questions, including personal ones, such as, “How do you bathe?” and “Can we take pictures of your bedroom?” Mary’s heart continues to amaze me! The boys learned so much from her and from playing with our Appleseed students. Pictures of these visits will be posted soon.

In addition, 2 more 5th grade boys visited the school to give a lesson to our students. Their Exhibition Project is on The Rights of Pets. Although, most of our students do not have pets, they still learned a lot about how to treat animals. Many Zambians are very afraid of dogs and dogs are often mistreated here. One students brought his dog, Mona. The Appleseed students got to pet and walk Mona. It was a wonderful experience for everyone! Thank you so much to all of these AISL Grade 5 students.

We also had 2 amazing donations, which I have written about on the Home Page. The AISL Grade 2 classes and their teachers had a bake sale to raise money for UNICEF’s School in a Box program. They donated their left over money, about $100, to RHO Appleseed School. I visited the class rooms to thank them. These are a wonderful group of 2nd graders! In addition, the teacher Ms. Tima Nesbit, talked to the people at UNICEF and they agreed to give the School in a Box that they bought to our school!! This was wonderful news! We will get the box sometime after Spring Break. UNICEF will deliver it to the AISL 2nd graders and they will then take a field trip to RHO Appleseed to deliver it! You can find out more about UNICEF’s School in a Box program by visiting their website. It is a box full of school supplies for 40 students! We are so excited to receive such a generous gift.

Also mentioned on the home page is a wonderful donation from Andy and Bridget Roberts of Eastlands Country Estates, in Lusaka. Andy and Bridget have donated K500,000 (about $100) in Pick and Pay vouchers each month for a year! This is about 1/4 of our food budget. We are so grateful to them for this donation.

This week we instituted a new curricular structure for the school. Rather than have our three teachers, teaching individual classes, we decided to try subject matter classes. So far, it has worked out wonderfully. Both the teachers and students seem to like it a lot. We have a reading/writing class, a math class and an elective class. This week the ‘elective’ class focused on science. There is a 45 minute session, then recess, then another 45 minute session, another recess, and then the last 45 session and then lunch. It has been a lot of fun seeing this new system work and being there to institute it.  Ken and I will spend next week there each day as well. Then I am confident that it will continue to run smoothly once we are back to work at AISL. This has been a wonderful way to spend our Spring Break.

Other big news for the school is that we are looking for a new school site. We have had some difficulties with the owners of the building that we are currently renting. We have realized that we need to find a way to own the building that we are in. Therefore, we have begun looking at property to purchase in the Bauleni Compound. There are a few sites that seem ideal. We want to buy land so that we can build the school to suit our needs, rather than adapt an existing building. To this end, we will soon begin intensive fundraising efforts! We have paid the rent on the current building through June, and hope to be able to purchase land by then. It is daunting, yet exciting!

We look forward to continued success and growth RHO Appleseed School!