06/05/2013
Malaikha a source of relief for children
By ARTHUR MWANSA
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| Doctor Siamubone in his office |
Situated in Chief Mwanachingwala’s chiefdom, on 10.6 hectares of land, Malaikha School for the Blind is an international institution in Zambia. It is the first of its kind to be established in the country.
Already built like a small village on its own, although the whole construction is far from being finished, you find the big Malaikha family consisting of teachers, class assistants, a cook, a manager, a director, volunteers, general workers and a lot of animals scurrying around.
The main venture of the organisation is a boarding school for blind and visually-impaired children with and without multiple disabilities. The project is the ambitious project run by a young female Austrian Barbara Lechner, who is organising the school alone.
The construction for the international boarding school started in 2009, with operations starting in September 2011. At the moment Malaikha has around 18 pupils in all age groups, since the youngest boy, Jackson, is just 3 years old, and the oldest student, Nancy, is already 30 years old.
One interesting ordeal about Nancy who hails from a small village in Mwanachingwala’s area. She turned blind when she was only six months old. Although no doctor was consulted, the parents think that she turned blind after suffering from small pox at a tender age.
She never went to school before she came to Malaikha, as her parents were often out working in the fields Nancy spent most of her time alone at home in her hut.
Unfortunately she got visitors quite often because some unruly boys in her village took advantage of her blindness and raped her several times. Therefore Nancy has already two children.
Students at Malaika School for the Blind are enrolled from all over Zambia. It is also interesting that kids from countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi have shown willingness to register at the school.
Almost all the kids have something in common; they did not get any proper education before joining Malaikha, since there are no approporiate schools for them in Zambia.
Malaikha is dependent on donations and there is still a lot missing at the school. The funds for the buildings were organised by Ms Lechner and Malaikha was lucky to find good partnership with the Nkwazi Office Supplies in Lusaka, a company which was always willing to help out with some money for materials when there were absolutely no funds available.
In 2011, Malaikha got support from the Canadian International Development Agency, the Canadian development organisation, which secured the water supply for Malaikha by sinking up a borehole with all the necessary pipes and connections since Malaikha was really struggling by walking far for collecting water.
In 2012, Malaikha finally got electricity with the help of the Germany Embassy, who paid for solar electricity installed by a company called Doneka.
Malaikha is urgently looking for more support. It is the reason proprietor Ms Lechner would like to partner with government and donors alike to sponsor salaries for teachers, class assistants, cooks and other care takers.
Ms Lechner, who is married to a named Zambian disc jockey, told the Femail News that “It has very difficult for the school to secure salaries for workers. For example I have never gotten any salary since 2009.
The school is also looking for donations like furniture, blankets or teaching materials like Braille machines, Braille paper, Braille displays and laptops.
She also wishes Malaikha would be sponsored with a school bus, to organise outings for the children and secure transport for them. Ms Lenchner is appealing to other well-wishers and financial institutions to come to the aid of the school by donating food stuffs such as mealie meal, cooking oil, potatoes, sugar, salt, milk powder, corn flakes, kapenta, flour, soya junks, dried beans, rice, pasta or buildings materials like cement, paint and building blocks.
The land on which Malaikha has been constructed is customary given to Ms Lechner by Chief Mwanachingwala. She said the land is fertile, although due lack of seeds and fertilisers they could not plant their fields.
The school has a curriculum which has been designed for the visually impaired children with and without multiple disabilities. Ms Lechner says “Children should never be classified by their age but by their ability to development. They should never be allowed to leave out learning steps. If a child needs time to reach a certain goal he or she has to get the necessary support without being pushed into the next challenge”.
Children at Malaikha have the privilege of having individual learning programmes based on the curriculum. The curriculum is also designed for schools with low numbers of children to make sure they fully understand learning procedures without much difficulties.
The curriculum is also an attempt to adapt the Zambian Basic Education Syllabi for the visually impaired children by using own ideas by Ms Lechner as well as different popular learning approaches.
Apart from providing education to the visually impaired children the Malaikha School for the Blind is also engaged in income generating activities such as gardening, piggery and chicken rearing.
School manager Doctor Siamubone said he is also grateful to chief Mwanachingwala and Ms Lechner for their commitment in ensuring that children who are visually impaired have access to regular classroom studies.
Just like Ms Lechner’s vision through the Malaikha School for the Blind the visually impaired children deserve to be educated in a placement that meets all their educational needs. Educators of blind and visually impaired children must place educational integration in its proper perspective and adopt as the overriding goal the development of skills that enhance integration in adult society.
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